Plastic Straws!
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
185.93681
Summary
Plastic straws are the most pressing and dangerous domestic security threat that the Western world faces. It's worse than terrorism, worse than the border crisis, and worse than any other issue facing law enforcement. In this episode, Andrew Lutton, CEO of the True North Initiative, talks about the dangers of plastic straws.
Transcript
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Today I'm going to be talking about the most pressing and dangerous domestic
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security threat that the Western world faces. Plastic straws.
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I know worse than terrorism, worse than the border crisis, worse than any other
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issues facing law enforcement. If you were paying attention to the news as of
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late you'd think that plastic straws were the clear and present danger facing us
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all. Well, it's not quite that bad but again that's the way it's being treated.
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The politics of plastic alive and well. Now I don't have a team in the whole
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plastic straw battle. I'm one of these people like most if I go to a restaurant
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and I'm given one I'll use it. If I go to a restaurant and I'm not given one I won't
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use it. And I've seen an increasing number of restaurants as of late that aren't
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offering plastic straws, major chains. You've got companies like Marriott and
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Starbucks that have decided they will company-wide globally phase out straws
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over the next few years. This is to me an example of the free market at work.
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There's a push within society within the consumer base that says we don't need
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plastic straws and we don't like the fact that they're contributing to ocean
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plastic. So therefore we want companies to withhold these straws unless someone
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requests them or to not offer them at all. And I think this is the greatest way for
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things to work. When you look at cities like Vancouver that are trying to do a
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plastic straw ban or states like California or European countries or any
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number of city councils that we know are going to be going down this road in the
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what the market is already doing and doing more effectively?
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See this is one of the biggest failings of Canadian society and western society
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more broadly. Because we think something's bad, we think government has to be the
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arbiter of that. Government does not lead, government follows, government responds
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when there is a sentiment already brewing in society which means
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that if the war on straws is in fact alive and well,
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free market enterprise will actually meet that demand.
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Now this is to say nothing of the fact that straws are getting a little bit of a
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bad rap here. People in the disability community have raised concerns that
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they need straws. You have other people that have pointed out statistics
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such as the fact that pretty much all of the straws that end up in the ocean
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and all plastic ending up in the ocean is actually coming from the developing
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world. So despite those heartbreaking videos of turtles with straws stuck in
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their nose, not getting a straw at Starbucks in
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London, Ontario or Vancouver, BC or San Francisco, California
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is not actually going to amount to a hill of difference.
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But again we need to impress upon people the importance of companies
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actually responding to consumer forces instead of making government the one
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that is supposed to react and ban everything. The nanny state is alive and
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well if we give it the power and the platform to be there.
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Let's let the market decide and on straws it seems to be already working.
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For the True North Initiative, I'm Andrew Lutton.