33. Plastic Straws

It’s the environmental issue everyone’s talking about, with companies and cities banning plastic straws all over the world. But while it’s often played up as either a super simple environmental issue that cities and companies can get tons of clout for single handedly fixing or a stupid issue that we should stop wasting our time on, the reality is that neither of those are really the case. Plastic straws, like every other episode topic on The Sweaty Penguin, are a surprisingly complex problem that demand a nuanced solution. Today, we’ll discuss to what extent plastic straws actually are a problem, and a variety of solutions (beyond the more newsworthy bans, paper straws, and pasta straws) for how the problem can be improved. With special guest Dr. Travis Wagner: Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Southern Maine.