San Francisco is considering legislation that would ban merchants from providing customers with single-use plastic straws, an ocean pollutant that environmentalists say poses serious health risks to marine life. The proposed legislation, introduced Tuesday by Supervisor Katy Tang, prohibits the distribution and sale of not only single-use plastic straws but also plastic stir sticks, plastic toothpicks and plastic splash sticks anywhere in the city. Tang asserts that more than a million plastic straws are discarded daily in San Francisco, an amount that surpasses the city’s population. And because of their size and plastic composition, plastic straws typically cannot be recycled. “Here in San Francisco, this is quite literally the last plastic straw,” Tang said Tuesday.

Source: Huffington Post May 16, 2018 22:41 UTC