In 2017 when Kasey Turner went snorkelling at beautiful Manly Beach in Sydney, she took the opportunity to pick up the plastic waste she saw around her. In just 20 minutes, she had collected 319 straws!
When she returned just 24 hours later, she found another 294 straws in the exact same spot. Australian beaches are famous for their idyllic blue waters and clean sands, but we’re swimming amongst plastic and straws... it doesn't help that we throw away approximately 10 million straws every day in our beautiful country!
Image: Harriet Sparks
Not only are we swimming amongst them, so are turtles and other marine life. Every year, hundreds of turtles die from eating plastic waste, and hundreds of thousands of other marine life such as otters, dolphins, whales and birds are killed too.
Since straws are only used once and then thrown away, they’re a big plastic waste culprit. In fact, they’re one of the top 10 most collected items on beach clean ups. They take hundreds of years to break down, and in the meantime they can harm marine life and leech chemicals into the environment.
Don’t worry, we can put these strawful woes behind us! There are lots of alternatives to plastic straws that make it super easy to reduce your use:
Reduce: At bars and restaurants, request to have your drinks without plastic straws.
Recycle: Paper straws are a good alternative as they are biodegradable and can be composted.
Reuse: To be a real green champ and reduce your waste, use reusable straws made of bamboo, glass or metal.
To help you out, we’ve just added Turtley Strawesome’s products to our Rewards Shop. They’re made of stainless steel and come in two sizes: the smoothie straw for all your chunky fruity smoothie needs, and the standard straw for every other occasion! Each order comes with a free straw cleaning brush to make it super easy to clean and reuse. Now the hard part is choosing which colour you want…
#BESTRAWESOME and cut plastic waste, lots of little actions can make a BIG difference! Keep it up sustainability champs!
Check out Turtley Strawesome in our Rewards Shop now!
Sustainable Salons Australia provides the most comprehensive waste free systems to the professional hairdressing industry. We collect and recycle 95% of a salon’s waste and reward the salon for their recycling efforts!
Contact us here if you’d like to become a member of Sustainable Salons Australia.
