The Straw Backlash: Why Guilt Doesn't Work

0:00 You know what bothers me? Is when people come up to me and be like, "You can't care about cleaning up plastic because your phone is made of plastic, or, your jacket, or there's pieces of your car that is made from plastic." The argument is designed to make you feel guilty and just give up. And it bothers me because, like, there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing I can do about it, Because we are in this system where plastic is just perpetuated through everything. I look around, and although I can reduce certain plastics, I can't reduce the others. And if you start to tell people, "Hey, like, I don't want to have all this plastic," like, "Well, your phone's made of plastic." That, that's how they sound too.

0:40 And you just see it, like you're just like, "This doesn't make sense." Like, wouldn't it be nice to have a world where we don't have plastic pollution? Like, is that so hard to ask? Well, today I'm gonna tell you about, like, one of the most famous incidences of plastic that happened with the plastic straw. A video happened, it went viral. And why guilt is the wrong way to think about all of this stuff in terms of plastic pollution, and even any type of environmental conservation, whether it's ocean or on land or in fresh water. We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and I'm a marine biologist and science communicator here to give you the skinny on everything that's happening in the ocean, whether it's ocean news, ocean science, ocean conservation.

1:23 I am pumped up today to talk about this kind of stuff, because, this is the stuff we see every day. And I've been talking to a lot of people these days, and it's really interesting when you have conversations with people and you do a podcast about, environmental, conservation and ocean conservation, because not everybody is seeing the same thing. They're going through different things, and they see science and conservation and environmentalism as something completely different and, like, disconnected from the rest of the world, i.e. economy. And I'm here to just kinda give you these types of conversations that we should be having with our peers, our family members, our friends. Not to say that we can solve everything, and not to say that, "Hey, we're better than them. They're better than us." It has nothing to do with that.

2:07 But have these real conversations about real life. and this week we're talking about that and what can be done if we take action. Not to say that we have to change everything and the economy's gonna go to crap if we do, but we're talking a lot about where to find your place if you want to do something that's different from what the rest of the world is doing. And can it be done? We talked yesterday about, yeah, it can be done. And the day before, yeah, it can be done. So how do we continue to do that? And today it's, about conversation itself, and some of the backlash that we face. And I wanna start with a story that, it feels like this was a long time ago, but it also feels like it was yesterday. But you've probably seen that video, a sea turtle off the coast of Costa Rica, an olive ridley sea turtle, with something stuck in its nose.

2:51 And these researchers are, like, going around tagging turtles and looking at turtles, and they see this turtle, and it's got a little blood coming off of its nose. And they bring it on board, and they are doing, like, their assessments and stuff like that. These are young researchers that are trying to do their science. and when they saw that there was something stuck in the nose, one of the members, Dr. Nathan Robinson, he said, "Hey, you know what? I'm gonna try and pull it out, because it's still coming-- Like, protruding. It's obviously hurting the sea turtle, so I'm gonna take it out." And the whole video is about that. I'm not gonna go into detail. It's kinda gory. If you wanna watch it, feel free. But when they took it out, they were, like, awestruck at the fact that it was a plastic straw It was this degraded, like folded, hard plastic straw.

3:36 and that video went viral. It went everywhere. And I got to interview both Dr. Nathan Robinson and Christine Figgener. Christine Figgener owns the video. She took the video. they're both PhDs, Dr. Christine Figgener and Dr. Nathan Robinson. Nathan was the person that took out the straw, and it's kind of interesting, like when I talked to Nathan about it, 'cause he was the first person I talked to about it, And I was like, "What are the chances of it happening?" And he's like, "It's gotta be a million to one." He didn't know, but he's like, "It's gotta be a million to one." Four months later, he's in about 70 kilometers south of where he saw that turtle. Olive Ridley sea turtle spawning season or, egg-laying season, they're all coming up on the beach. He's doing his epibiont, study where he's looking at the shells and what's on the shells and what colonizes on the shells.

4:21 Really cool study. I've talked about it before. I'll link to it in the show notes. But he's minding his own business, doing his research and it's like a tourist thing. So there's all these tourists, and somebody comes over to him and says, "Hey, can you, check this turtle out? It looks like there's something stuck in its nose." And he's like, "Oh, I've been here before." and he went over there, and there's a video of it as well. went pretty viral. Not as much as the other one. But yeah, it's pretty viral. And when he pulled it out, there was a fork. It was a plastic fork and it was interesting to see like, hearing that one in a million, as I said before, he didn't know. He was just kinda guessing. And then seeing it happen twice in four months. Now he did say later on that olive ridley sea turtles are omnivores.

5:01 They tend to eat things and they tend to try things out. So they are a sea turtle that's more than likely, out of all the sea turtles, to, go after and try something new. And he probably thought that it was a shrimp 'cause like the plastic fork was kinda degraded and it's kind of up on like in a little hook, just like a shrimp. Same with the straw probably. And when he ate it, this is all assumptions of course, probably tried to swallow it, realized it wasn't a shrimp, and probably tried to cough it up but it went in its nasal cavity. So imagine something in your throat. Obviously your nasal cavity is kinda connected to your throat as well. we've all had boogers that we've like sniffed up a little too hard, it went into the back of our throat. Kinda gross, but it happens. and so they just like try to cough it up and it just went up through the nasal cavity and it got stuck as they tried to get it out.

5:43 So obviously, can't do much because they don't have the dexterity to do that. and so that's what he kinda figured happened. So it probably happens more often than we thought. So after that video, the straw video especially, it went viral in August 2015. Over the next few years it helped like launch this global movement against single-use plastics, but it wasn't just single-use plastics. What the world saw was straws, And, when the, public saw this, you saw a lot of organizations that was like, "Ban the straw." they had all these straws. They were making metal straws, paper straws, glass straws, all these different types of straws. And of course there was debates, like plastic straws are still being used by people who need to use it, who have some sort of- condition or disability where they need to use, a straw.

6:31 And so businesses, they went through the whole gambit. I think some businesses were like, "I wanna ban all plastic straws because it doesn't look good that I have plastic straws." But some people still need it, so they had to keep a little bit. And there was all these policies that went into place or that were being discussed and debated online. it's kind of interesting because although it also helped launch a global sort of movement to ban single-use plastics, there was also this negative connotation to it where it's just straws. And so a lot of people used paper straws, 'cause I think that was the most readily available but, cheaper option, because it was readily available. It could scale pretty quickly. And then people hate paper straws. They always complain that if they put it in their drink, after a while that paper straw will disintegrate.

7:12 of course, now they've have better paper straws, but that seems to be, like, a big thing for a lot of people. And I remember when, Donald Trump, President of the United States, got in the second time. The first day he got in, he said that any government facility, they're not selling paper straws. They're not putting paper straws. They are putting plastic straws. And they made a big deal, and everybody cheered like it was a huge thing to do, the reality is, is like the idea of the symbol of the plastic straw is more of like a gateway plastic, like a gateway drug to all the other things that we use that are single-use plastics that we don't need to use. There are alternatives to use it and better, more sustainable uses for these products, that are not made of plastic, people kept holding onto this idea that it's plastic straws, plastic straws.

7:57 I saw posts over COVID. It's like, "I don't even care about like sea turtles. I live in Ontario," or, "I live in the Midwest. why would I care about sea turtles? I want plastic straws." And it just felt like an argument just for the sake of arguing, I had a lot of people on my news feed, internet gets kinda hectic sometimes, and you just start to see that, and you're just like, " how has this become a punchline? It kinda took the wrong turn. And it frustrated me, like I said, the straw was never the point, It was that gateway plastic, There are some governments that took that to heart. And although it took a while, the Canadian government, federal government, put in a ban on specific plastics, including the plastic that creates straws, and takeout containers, and all that other stuff that went along.

8:39 So we started to see that shift and Canada wasn't the only one. Costa Rica did, and a whole bunch of other, states and provinces and federal governments all did the same thing. Not all of them, but a lot of them did. But the thing is, is like it kind of backfired because everybody was talking about the straw, and apparently that became a huge issue and it became politicized. And when things become politicized, just like politics, people take a side, whether it's liberal or conservative or wherever you are. We have multiple parties in Canada. Whether you're far left or center left or far right, center right, and everybody's calling each other names and it's a team. it feels like, in hockey, here in, the NHL, you're either the Leaf fan or you're, a Canadiens fan, a Habs fan.

9:22 And, you're supposed to hate each other 'cause there's this rivalry, and it's fun because it's a rivalry, 'cause it's sports, because it doesn't really mean anything. It's just, sports, so it's fun to have a rival. But when it has to do with policies and it has to do with every bit, day life and looking at the environment, looking at how people are actually, affected by this and the environment and everything like that and, how plastic is bad, when we see this, like, rebellion against the plastic straw, it really Works backwards. It's not looking out for health of people. People are just like, "I choose the plastic straw, so I'm gonna choose it, and that is my freedom and that is my right. I'm not gonna be forced to use any other straw." Okay. Sure.

10:03 I guess. I don't know. And I don't really know how it works. is it the customer that figures it out? Is it, where the customer dictates, "I'm not gonna buy from you because you're selling a plastic straw. so I'm choosing to go to somewhere else where it's not plastic straw"? Maybe it's a little bit of that. Maybe it's someone like, "I'm only gonna go to places where there is a plastic straw and I'm not going to go where there's a paper straw." But meanwhile, in the background, there's policies that are being made that bans all of that. And so eventually you may not have a choice at all. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I have no idea. from an environmental perspective, it's good to get plastics off. Is it just the straw? I really don't care if it's just the straw. I want more. I don't want just the straw, like plastic straw. And I don't want it all together. I want people with disabilities to have access, it's part of life.

10:44 We may not be able to get rid of all because it works until there is a sustainable alternative for people who have that, But the funny thing is too, is like when you start to look at that, like what's really going on, is the backlash a majority of the people Or is it just a loud minority? In 2024, Abacus Data poll for Oceana Canada had 82% of Canadians supporting the federal single-use plastics ban, including 71% of people planning to vote conservative. So it wasn't necessarily a partisan issue. It was just the fact that you ask people, they are people, they don't need the single-use plastic bag. In a July 2026 research, corporation, a poll, still found majority support for every banned item.

11:28 So from 52% to 60%. The outrage got amplified far beyond its actual size. And you wonder what's at play here. And we can go into the details, but obviously there are people that are online or on TV or both, who are professional rage baiters. They want the clicks. I feel like media is really pushing the envelope now, no matter what media outlet it is. They want people to feel an emotion when we watch their videos, when we watch TV, or when we watch their programs. And I think a lot of the times there are people who are just sick of it.

12:10 And it's like, I can have a feeling on some issue and a different feeling on another issue, and I don't have to be labeled to be a particular party or anything like that, But that's a tangent. obviously, I'm recording this the night of the US midterm elections. It's obviously a big vote, especially for environmental stuff. But I'm not sure, I've been watching this one politician that keeps coming up in my feed. It's one of the biggest races, I believe this is for Senate. it's Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for Senate. and all the questions that are being asked of him are, like, these kind of rageful rhetoric type of questions. So media's like, "So-and-so said this about you." it had to do with a lot with politics and him being Muslim.

12:50 and they're just like, "Do you agree with this? Do you not agree with?" And he just kept repeating, " I'm not gonna answer those questions 'cause I've already answered them in another time. I am for the Constitution, I am for the American people, I'm American, and I'm running for the United States Senate because I am proud to be American." And he's like, "I am here for the issues that the people feel, cost of living," blah, blah, blah. Now, whether I support the man or not doesn't matter 'cause I can't vote for him. What I liked was the refreshing feeling of him talking about the actual issues at play that the people feel, not this rage-baiting type of rhetoric that we see in politics of so-and-so called you this, and so-and-so called you that.

13:30 I haven't watched a lot of the politics go on, and I haven't seen if it's just on Democrat side or thing. I don't really care. The point of this story was to say, "Hey There are people out there that want the best for humanity. And whether you agree with what side they're on or not, I think a lot of us, especially looking at the environmental movement and conservation, I think we have to start looking at that from that perspective and stop talking about politics. Stop saying, global liberal elitist or conservative elitists that are doing this and they're hypocrites this is what happens. politicians are hypocrites. They say one thing, they do another, they get caught.

14:11 It used to be if it was a scandal, they would be gone. Now they just stay, and it's, weird to see that. But it's also, like, the environmental issues have become such politics. and we gotta strip that away and just be like, "I just want it good for humans. I just want it good for the planet. I don't care about politics and all that." Obviously, when it comes to policy, you gotta put that in place, there's a path for it, There's a space for it. But still, it's weird. And because it's so political and there's money behind politics, you see that there's money behind these campaigns to really talk negatively about, say, a plastic straw. plastics are a fossil fuel industry, It's their plan Bs.

14:51 30% of their revenue is from creating plastics. It is a petroleum product, As energy decarbonizes, the industry is betting on plastic. And without new policies, the projects like the global plastic use will, almost triple by 2060. And they're among the most powerful lobbyists in the world. there is a, UN movement, like where there's COP, to look at a global plastic treaty to see how we manage plastic. And there are more, like, oil and gas and fossil fuel and chemical lobbyists that are present at these meetings than the environmental lobbyists. That's some, saying something. And they know that this is important to them. They know that this is a money maker. And that money will go towards campaigns 'cause they have a lot of it, So the plastics is not necessarily about turtles anymore.

15:36 It's not necessarily about protecting the environment. What started as a marine issue is now understood as a human health issue. Microplastics in the bloods, lungs, brains, atmosphere, like everywhere, in the water. And it's a climate issue. It's a biodiversity issue. And it's a human rights issue for communities living next to production plants So guilt doesn't work on me, and it shouldn't work on you. Yes, we have plastic products. Like, it is what it is. You can reduce the single use and not feel guilty about having plastic products until they come out with an alternative, until businesses, and I do think that businesses are the ones that are really gonna make the change. And consumers can influence that by when there's an alternative, you support that alternative at some point in time when it's good.

16:19 It's a product that has to work, it has to have longevity, all that kind of stuff, I feel like the research on messaging shows, like lead towards blames, like, it just turns people off. When you have positive solutions, like, that are focused, And those messages that have that That works better. our awareness expands, and then we start to say, "Hey, you know what? that actually makes sense. let's do that. Let's see if we can do that." Is it expensive off the bat? Yeah, it'll be expensive off the bat. Look at EVs. When they first came out, they were super expensive. Nobody could afford it. Then, like, as much as I don't like Elon Musk, Tesla came out with the Model 3 and it became affordable, and you're like, "Okay, this is cool." And then hybrids came out, then EVs with other manufacturers came out, then they went back, and then they came back. And then now there's, like, cheap alternatives, Toyota had, like, what?

17:01 The first EV, the Prius, I think? I don't know the history around that, but, I knew folks who had hybrid Priuses way before, like, EVs came out. Because if it makes sense from a cost of living standpoint, you can afford it, then buy it, if that's what you choose to do. But I think the big thing is, like, drop the guilt, This is a system design problem. It's not a personal failing. It is not just up to you, and there are marketing campaigns to make you feel guilty Cause when you feel guilty, you turn off the care, and then you just go back to what you were doing before. And, like, we should be leading with solutions. Like, "This isn't your fault, but here's what we can do together." So when there's an opportunity to do that, if it makes economic sense, then let's do it.

17:41 But how does it make economic sense? I don't know. That's something I'm still trying to figure out. I'm not an economist, nor am I into finance or anything like that. I'm a marine biologist and science communicator, but I would love to have those types of discussions, and hopefully I will soon on my YouTube channel. We have to let people see for themselves, and there's an industry that's really scared that we are trying to get away from plastics, A beach cleanup or a film night does more than a lecture, and it is positive. And you pick up 10,000 bottles, and you probably won't buy the next one after you do that. You probably find a community that believes in the same thing that you do, as we talked about yesterday, you wanna aim the pressure upstream, government, businesses, that kind of stuff, at producers and the governments that let them operate this way, That have the subsidies for them, that get the campaign contributions for them, I would love to see money come out of politics.

18:30 I don't know if that'll ever happen, but that'd be really great if it did. But I think the biggest point is, like, when you get into a conversation about whether it's plastic or anything environmental, maybe at dinner or at work or online, try, like, a solutions first framing. Like, no blame. Not to say, "Hey, you're conservative, you're this, you're that." Just one positive example. It's like, "Hey, so and so did this and it really worked. Like, I think we could do this." Maybe it's small scale now, but that's a start, Nobody's gonna solve this overnight. It's not gonna happen. We're not gonna just ban plastics and that's it. It's gonna happen over a long time. This is how the world works. But if someone hits you with, "Well, your phone is plastic," yeah, I agree, and say, "That's exactly why the system needs to change at every single level." That's the big thing. Because, like, if we don't start to ask for more positive changes, then we just burn out, And we feel like hypocrites 'cause we're using something and we're doing another.

19:19 we go quiet. we tend to, like, just disappear from the conversation, which is exactly what the industry wants. When now the big marketing push for fossil fuel companies about climate change is like, "Hey, there's nothing we can do about it." Before it was a denial that it was ever happening. Now it's like, "Yeah, it's happening. we fibbed a little, but now there's nothing you can do about it, so there's no point in trying." but if we change the conversation and we start to bring more people in instead of pushing them away, we might be able to see that change, today we're talking about, just the conversation, but tomorrow we're gonna be talking about the big picture. How small town wins built the case for a global plastics treaty, and what you can do this week. So we're gonna talk all about that on tomorrow's episodes. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode or any of the episodes that you've heard in the past. If you're on Spotify, there's a comment section, which is really great.

20:02 I like to check that out, every once in a while. I usually check once a week. So please, have your comments, questions, whatever that might be, concerns, whatever that is, I would love to have that conversation. And if you're listening to this on a different app, your favorite podcast app, my social links are in the show notes. Just click on them, DM me. I would love to hear from you, have this conversation, continue this conversation. No judgment, just like human to human, we're trying to figure this out. Not that we're gonna figure it out tomorrow, but hopefully one day as a community, as a global community, we'll figure it out. but I would love to hear what you thought. And if you've ever called a hypocrite for caring about plastic or any other environmental, issue, I would love to hear like how you responded. I wanna shout out, someone that connected with me, recently, Virginia Gastelo Gonzalez.

20:45 She, listened to my podcast and she had like questions from it. She reached out on LinkedIn to me and I just love it. Thank you so much, Virginia. I really appreciate you, reaching out, have that conversation. and I just think it's really, really funny. she's looking at developing, a project to reduce microplastic pollution in Antarctica from all those trips that are happening, and I think it's such a great cause. And these are the people that will slowly change the world. So be a part of that. Be a Virginia. Be whoever you wanna be and help have these conversations to make those change. I wanna thank you so much for listening to this episode, for listening to every episode or however many episodes that you've listened to. I know I put out a lot five days a week, but I really appreciate you listening.

21:27 I love doing this. This is like a fun job for me. I work at Pisces and I get to do this, it's a lot of fun. So I really enjoy having that conversation. That's the one thing that I really got into it for, is to have these types of conversations. So don't be shy. Let me know. I would love, to hear from you. And by the way, IMCC 8 is coming up. International Marine Conservation Congress is coming up in a couple weeks. If you are listening to this and you are going to be at IMCC 8 in Edinburgh, Scotland Please feel free to talk to me, come up to me, and I would love to have a chat, what you think about the episode, what you do, all that kind of stuff. feel free to come up to me. Don't be shy. I am looking to have these types of conversations with people.

22:08 I'm super excited about the conference, meeting up with old friends, but also meeting new people. It's always fun, to get together with colleagues from, marine conservation. And so, yeah, so don't feel shy. Please come up to me. I would love to meet you. So thanks a lot for joining us. I am your host, Andrew Lewin. This has been another episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.