leadership dot #2016: don't suck

I consider myself to be environmentally conscious, but one aspect of my impact I did not consider is my use of plastic straws. I just routinely snapped on the drink lid, peeled off the paper and inserted the straw – in almost every drink I had outside my home. Just like other Americans do, contributing to the 500 million straws destined for a life in the landfill every day.

Why?

It is one thing to do it on large drinks to go, but do you really need a straw in a glass beverage at Applebees? Or one in a paper cup that you don’t plan on taking with you? No.

I never use straws at home (except for the one that is permanently inserted in my Tervis cup), and the thought of having a dispenser or putting a straw in a glass at the dinner table seems absurd. Yet we do it routinely whenever we have a drink at restaurants, fast food, snack bars, etc.

I never paid attention to any of this until I read the great article in the Washington Post that caused me to start consciously using straws instead of mindlessly using them.
You, too, can suck a lot less if you heed their admonition to go straw-less or at least use far fewer of the environmental nightmares than you are using now. Be mindful instead of mindless for a week and see what a difference you can make.