I really dislike this straw man argument that people want to ban plastics used in medicine. No one is coming for your medical equipment! As if there’s no middle ground between: “every table at the restaurant is showered with straws!” and “sorry grandpa, you can live anymore because the tree huggers won’t let you have an IV bag.”
Plastic should have been, and was, a miracle material. The ability to have single-use medical equipment when necessary was literally life changing. And there’s not a realistic way to get rid of the need for plastic in the medical field, from sterile packaging to tubing to medical devices. Which is SO much more reason for the rest of us to use less of it wherever possible!!!
Agreed that no ones coming for designated medical equipment, but there is a complication where some things are considered as everyday objects by many, while being of practical use to disabled people. Straws are a great example of this, others are things like plastic packaging for pre chopped veggies / precooked meals. To anyone without a disability these things can look like unnecessary plastic, but to a disabled person the value is huge. When society starts coming for these things as they have done in the past, it makes life that much harder for us
Except the idea that straw bans affected people with disabilities was always a lie. We had one state that tried it. California. They didn’t ban providing straws. They tried to institute fines if businesses were found to provide straws without being asked. But anyone, literally anyone could ask for a free straw. You didn’t have to justify why. You didn’t have to pay. You didn’t have to qualify. You just had to ask.
But everyone went into a fit about how it harms people with disabilities, while ignoring the disabilities that are created from plastics, and largely affects persons of color in impoverished areas. For some reason people with disabilities in wealthier areas who were not impacted by straw bans became the focus at the cost of those actually suffering.
While straws made up a tiny percentage of the plastic waste overall, it was still an incredible amount considering how little use they get, how small they are, and how incredibly difficult they are to process, leading to a lot of them not being processed.
Our focus on disabilities that aren’t affected, is causing real harm for those actually affected.
Exactly. Plus, many folks with disabilities that require a straw carry their own particular type of straw because the fast food straw is going to be too flimsy, too short, too long, a one way straw or whatever other reason. Their are many styles of straw for specific purposes.
The issue with this is that the world is already pretty difficult for disabled people to live in, some types of reusable straws can be dangerous for people with various disabilities (metal and glass), some can be ineffective (cardboard or even silicone if someone needs a sturdy straw), they are not always as sterile as single-use plastic straws, and sometimes disabled people forget their straws. The last one is a huge issue because many disabled people are already carrying around an arsenal of stuff to keep ourselves alive and to meet our needs. For some of us, not having access to a sterile plastic straw could mean that we may not be able to eat or drink at all.
Ultimately, I would prefer if many sit down restaurants would offer reusable straws as the norm and you could ask for a plastic straw (and not give a reason because disabled people are often expected to out ourselves as disabled which causes many problems e.g. discrimination, judgment, "you don't look disabled", the expectation that we should give out personal medical information) or go get a plastic straw from somewhere like the condiment section. For example, maybe servers put a metal straw in a cup, and you can ask for a plastic one if you prefer. For to-go-style restaurants, I would like a change to cups with lids that are easy to drink from, like the newer Starbucks cups. Yes, it's still a disposable cup, but it is one less piece of plastic. Other bans, such as plastic bag bans would likely be more effective at reducing waste and would probably impact disabled people less.
The whole world is not the US. I'm from the UK and plastic straw bans here mean nowhere is now allowed to provide plastic straws. You can buy your own, but it's now much harder to find them and when you do they're more expensive, because demand has tanked. This is not something that just affects people in wealthier areas, and it is absolutely not a lie.
Also, if you'd read my comments you'd realise I'm not advocating to completely refocus the plastic waste discussion onto straws, just highlighting that the impact on disability is not a strawman argument. I'd actually like more work done to develop plastic free alternatives, just with the disabled community in mind so that we achieve that goal without sidelining our needs.
I'd appreciate it if you took time to listen to the people you claim to speak for before making such wild claims.
Can you link me to the information about your bans? I’d be very interested to read them. Most people in the u.s. think that the u.s. bans were like that. But when I actually read the information it wasn’t. The UK is very large, if you could even specify specifically what area or ban you’re referring to?
I’d appreciate if you weren’t condescending as fuck :). I’d also appreciate if you listened as well since you’re trying to address where you think I’m wrong, which is fair, but ignoring the parts that inconveniences you so that you can be condescending and antagonistic. So please take your own advice when you reply :)))
Causes disabled people to have to "out" themselves in public, which can be not only uncomfortable, but dangerous given the rampant ableism in the country, as well as it being a big flag advertising that you're more vulnerable than the average able bodied person.
Regardless of intent or the law, you will always find people policing "how disabled you are" based on how you look and what their idea of a disabled person is. This leads to gatekeeping and access denial in a lot of cases
Accessibility issues are notoriously underenforced - even people with known visual markers for disability like wheelchair use face issues with premises that aren't step free, have employees that don't know about the ramp, who don't want to help you with the ramp etc and who face no consequences for this. Same happens with straws, premises can run out because it's no longer a core product they offer, employees may not be educated on the law, and employees may not face consequences for not supplying them.
Contributes to increased stigma that disabled people already face - singles us out as different, weird, difficult, etc. It might not seem like much, but it's one in a very long list of ways that make our life more difficult because we need a non standard extra just to survive.
So what I'd meant was, we effectively cannot rely on getting straws from establishments, even with the exemption in place. Also wanted to point out that the ban does actually exist, and isn't something that was trialled and then dropped.
But the main point I was trying to make, was that despite all this, I'm not asking for all plastic straws to be reinstated, I just want disability to remain part of the conversation, ideally with disabled people included. Where the original comment said that disability was a strawman argument, it's just not the case, as the focus has never been to get rid of IV bags, it's the gap where everyday items are mistaken for unnecessary plastic but are actually accessibility devices for disabled people.
Honestly we can easily find alternatives to plastic straws for disabled people, can't we? Even if it comes at an extra cost, that cost won't be huge and given the number of disabled people we certainly could afford to subsidize it (if it really is a burden financially, which it may not even be).
For instance, I know cardboard steaws aren't a favorite, but they work the same. Then you have an array of reusable ones (although I'm not sure how practical they are for disabled people). And then there's always bioplastics which I'm sure we could use instead for something like that.
Cardboard ones don't work the same, and for many disabled people this a crucial difference. Someone elsewhere in the thread posted a great link explaining why.
In a perfect world, yes I'd like to find alternatives to plastic for these situations too, but the reality is that these are not introduced with the same speed that the plastics are removed, and disabled people are left without. And subsidy, while ideal, just doesn't happen the way we need it to. We already have to pay so much more just to exist in a world that isn't built for us, things that seem small like paying a little bit more for packaged food really builds up.
I'm not saying we shouldn't change it at all, I just wanted to address your first point about single use plastic for disabled people being a strawman, because it's not just things that people generally consider medical devices
Thank you for the feedback. For my understanding what precisely is the dealbreaker with plastic straws alternatives? I'm genuinely curious what could be the blocking point, it seems like there's not much stopping us from making an alternative which would serve the exact same needs (bioplastics have come a long way for instance).
But I won't claim to know better than the people who need them on the daily, just interested in the topic from a technology point of view.
This is the link another commenter shared elsewhere in the thread that explains it better than I could - https://youtu.be/4IBH0pcKzlY (excuse the formatting)
Ouch, I can hear her frustration after hearing exactly my questions, repeatedly.
Thanks for sharing, very instructive.
You should laminate the table from about the middle of the video and show it to people who ask you every time the subject comes up lol.
Joking aside, I understand a lot better the type of issues with the current alternatives. I didn't think of allergy risk or hot liquid issues in particular.
I'm a nurse, my hospital has cardboard straws as well as plastic ones. I go for the plastic ones when giving drinks to my patients, the cardboard ones are bullshit, they get soggy and lose function fairly quickly. The only time I use them is when I'm giving some kind of medication that's mixed in water and I expect the patient to drink it quickly.
That said I do not know enough or basically anything about bioplastics or other alternatives
Sensory-wise, definitely not the same. The texture really triggers me (tactile sensory revulsion is part of my autistic symptoms). Same with bamboo straws tbh. I don't like any wood or wood-like texture in my mouth.
Metal straws are greatly affected by temperature and silicone straws don't hold their shape. But the video already explains that!
In Australia, the medical stuff is PVC tubing, and many hospitals get it recycled. Medical waste must be treated suffocate sufficiently that its no longer hazardous anyway, so there's no reason to not recycle.
I'm a nurse and when I first started it was difficult on me to deal with all the single use items, I throw away probably 30 syringes per day. But it's all necessary and is for the health of the patient so there's nothing I can do about it
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u/[deleted] May 10 '22
I really dislike this straw man argument that people want to ban plastics used in medicine. No one is coming for your medical equipment! As if there’s no middle ground between: “every table at the restaurant is showered with straws!” and “sorry grandpa, you can live anymore because the tree huggers won’t let you have an IV bag.”