Every day, tons of commercial, domestic, and industrial waste is released into the environment. We are destroying our planet and the things are definitely going the wrong direction.

According to the statistics, in 2016, 7 billion people produced 320 million tons of plastic. By 2034, this number will be double. As a result, over 100,000 sea animals die due to plastic pollution in waters.

Plastic takes hundreds of years to decompose because it is non-biodegradable. It also affects soil quality, thus reducing its safety.

Plastic affects the whole planet, including human health. Here are the biggest dangers upon human health which appear as a result of its use:

• Chemicals found in plastic can disfigure genitals in unborn male babies
• Plastic increases the risk of childhood asthma
• Chemicals in plastic reduce female libido
• It destroys the hormonal balance

Plastic straws are a big problem although they aren’t the biggest contributor to plastic waste. Around 500 million plastic straws are used on a daily basis in America, while 8.3 billion straws end up on beaches.

The manager of Café Editha, in the Philippines, Sarah Tiu, has never been a fan of plastic straws. At first, she used stainless and paper straws which customers didn’t like, so she had to come up with another solution.

Her trip to Corregidor Island helped her find a solution. There, she was taught how to make eco-friendly straws out of buko and lukay. Buko is the coconut juice and lukay refers to the coconut leaves and fronds. Unlike plastic ones, these straws are safe and biodegradable.

Customers loved these new straws which were also leak-proof and didn’t produce the annoying sounds.
Tiu has shared pictures of her new straws on social media in order to encourage the other owners to do the same.

The ban on plastic straws has started to increase worldwide, so there are numerous organic substitutes you can use as safer alternatives. If all restaurants, café bars, and juice vendors could take up this idea, they would make a huge collective effort in the reduction of plastic pollution.