Chicago Straw Company Thrives, Despite Anti-Straw Movement

CBS Chicago ^ | August 15, 2018

[McGruff]

A Chicago company hopes to thrive, despite making a product under fire this summer. Plastic drinking draws have recently been seen as a public enemy, according to many environmentalists.

Machines spit out straws at a dizzying rate inside a factor on Chicago’s far South side. The machines produce so many straws every year, Bob Beavers III, the Chairman of Best Diamond Plastics, says “the number of straws we produce begins with a b.”

Best Diamond Plastics is a company that has seen an uptick in business, despite the anti-straw movement.

“Some of our competitors have turned off their straw machines. We’ve seen an increase in volume because there’s no viable alternative,” Beavers said.

[McGruff]

When straws are outlawed, only outlaws will have straws.

[madison10]

It isn’t happening here. The straw movement is a California invention.

[McGruff]

[Billthedrill]

It isn’t all straws, it’s only the high-capacity assault straws. Why would anyone need those weapons of war to suck on a soft drink?

[Pining_4_TX]

Another phony cause.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/07/26/asia-africa-cause-90-plastic-pollution-worlds-oceans-13233

[Buckeye McFrog]

well, Illinois Democrats have to suck the life-blood out of you with SOMETHING now, don’t they?

[Covenantor]

Another assault on the Second Amendment. Next they'll be coming for dried peas and spit wads. When straws are outlawed only juvenile delinquents will have straws.

On October 11, 2014 the National Pea Shooting Association (NPSA) presented the first U.S. National Pea Shooting Championship.

"Probably one of the simplest sports available, participants place the pea shooter (similar to a drinking straw) to their lips and blow as hard as they can, aiming to shoot the pea at a chosen target.”

[freedumb2003]

This sounds like a straw man argument to me.

[libertylover]

I think I’m going to start asking for an extra straw when I order a drink. After all, the children of straw makers have to eat too.

[Rio]

Straw bans seen as tackling a 'gateway plastic'
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20180801/NEWS/180809988/straw-bans-seen-as-tackling-a-gateway-plastic

You’ve heard about gateway drugs. In the debate over banning disposable straws, there are now “gateway plastics.”
That’s how some environmentalists and government leaders pushing bans on plastic straws describe them, as a way to prompt bigger questions about use, or misuse, of disposable plastics.
They see straws as a problem on their own — they’re consistently among Ocean Conservancy’s top 10 items of beach litter — but their constant presence sticking out of your drink gives them a bigger symbolic value.
“We’ve always known that the plastic straw is a gateway plastic for a broader conversation on single-use plastics,” said Dune Ives, executive director of the Lonely Whale Foundation, which spearheaded a “Strawless in Seattle” campaign and is working in other cities. “It’s not about the straw entirely. It’s about how we 
see single-use plastics in our lives.”

[HighSierra5]

I heard that they make straws out of macaroni. That actually sounds like a good idea. Then you can eat it after your finished with it.

[pax_et_bonum]

Straw is “warts” spelled backwards.

[ThomasThomas]

It’s not even California. Just a couple cities. And they haven’t banded straws altogether. Just at sit down restaurants, one of the least likely places for the straw to enter the environment from .

The real story is even crazier. As I understand it, it only covers waitresses that give someone a straw without asking for a straw first.

That is just crazy. To go beyond crazy the maximum penalty is 6 months in jail.

The state is looking legislation too now.

To make it even crazier the is the same house that tried and failed to pass a law that if you could find a doctor that says your crime was a result of an mental illness charges would be dropped and after you finish therapy you would go free, included rape and murder. This cause enough of a uproar that they excluded just some violent crimes. It hasn’t passed yet.

So I guess if your passing out of straws was caused by a mental disorder your ok!

I myself don’t use straws most of the time. Some restaurants here still pass them out by default. I have asked for a straw just because too.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I heard that they make straws out of macaroni.

Used to be an Italian restaurant around here that used them. Pretty cool.

[P.O.E.]

Got a paper straw at an overpriced burger joint at Harrah’s Atlantic city. If I wasn’t in a hurry I would have raised a fuss.

[Tammy8]

I use canning jars for cold drinks...have holes in the lids and we use straws since we usually take drinks outside to keep our drink clean.

A cowboy came by a couple days ago and as I fixed him a cold drink to take outside I told him he was lucky we could still have straws in NM. He had not even heard about the big straw controversy. You should have heard me trying to explain it to him, that is when it really strikes you how downright stupid things have become.

The killer was the cowboy looked confused as I am and then said well we used to have paper straws but wasn’t it the same kind of idiots that were worried about trees back then?

[Tammy8]

The problem is crazy things that start in California have a way of spreading, the special stupid is like a contagious disease.

[gibsonguy]

“the anti straw movement”. Get the F outgha here! Only in a couple insane asylum Rat cities.

[vette6387]

“It’s not even California. Just a couple cities. And they haven’t banded straws altogether. Just at sit down restaurants, one of the least likely places for the straw to enter the environment from .”

Yeah, a “white table cloth restaurant” that gives you a straw with your water and your butter wrapped in tinfoil, is definitely off my list of places to eat. OTOH when you go through the drive-thru, a straw comes in handy. So do, perish the thought, a wad of paper napkins.

[familyop]

If I remember correctly, back when we had a little more than half the population that we have now, straws were made of paper. They were okay, although they collapsed a little easier when used. Cups were waxed paper, too.