Explanation: Should NZ ban plastic straws

I think that plastic straws should be banned because they are harming our animals who think that the plastic is their food. Plastic straws can get stuck in turtle’s noses, in the throats of fish and in the beaks of birds, causing slow, painful deaths. People don’t realise the number of straws being thrown away that end up on our beaches and in our oceans. Plastic straws are on our beaches and many New Zealanders don’t seem to care. Wouldn’t you prefer to save our seas?

If an animal swallows a plastic straw it is really dangerous because they can’t digest their food properly. In a few years there might be more plastic straws than sea creatures in our oceans. Imagine that! Animals should not be getting treated this way because it is not really appropriate for people to be doing this to them.

We should stop using plastic straws because they take around 500 years to biodegrade or breakdown, which is a real problem. Plastic straws are a waste because once you use them, they are simply thrown away. The plastic in the straws contains chemicals which can be really harmful to these animals, animals that often become our food. Meaning people will eventually ingest these chemicals as they make their way up the food chain.

I choose not to use plastic straws because of the damage they are causing to the world around us. Sadly during beach cleanups over the last ten years 65,000 plastic straws were found lying around NZ shorelines.