Some woman read a statistic about how many plastic straws were thrown away every year.
The number being huge triggered her over-active 'hyper concern amygdala' and she screamed, 'WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!'
It became her duty to 'save the world' (from plastic straws).
She then convinced similar non-critical thinking idiots to also, 'save the world' (from plastic straws).
Everyone wants to save the world. Don't you want to save the world?
What better way to save the world than by forcing others to save the world for you.
78.4% of statistics are made up on the spot.
I heard today that a seas turtle was found dead with a straw up its nose. For real. That was a real piece of news. Yet cocaine has not been banned.
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/59wn88/california-bill-aims-to-ban-plastic-straws
The “500 million straws” figure has been repeatedly cited by Calderon, activists and even the National Park Service but, according to Reason, it has a less-than-scientific origin. The number originally came from Eco-Cycle, a recycling company, but it was allegedly provided to them by a nine-year-old boy. No, really. In 2011, a then-nine-year-old Milo Cress conducted phone surveys of straw manufacturers and, after hanging up his parents’ phone, he arrived at that figure, which has been roundly quoted ever since. (Cress, now 16, says the National Restaurant Association has since double-checked his estimates).