The best way to insure that your plastic straw ends up in a sea turtle’s nose it to recycle it.
Regular trash goes straight to your nearest landfill. Absolutely zero chance of the straw getting to the ocean.
But if you recycle it, it could be shipped overseas where it is manually sorted for recycling. Unfortunately dirty plastic won’t be used so it gets dumped in the nearest river or body of water. Cue the sea turtles.
So feel free to use plastic straws but don’t fall for the recycling scam.
Here’s an article about Tulsa recycling. We only recently incorporated recycling into our virtue signaling trash collection regimen, but the plant burned. And it's not expected to reopen for 6 to 8 months. That likely means another year.
Yet, people are still segregating their trash and putting out the recycling cans.