PLASTIC PROHIBITION

Starbucks to Ditch Plastic Straws Completely By 2020

Move should eliminate one billion plastic straws a year.

Starbucks has become the latest—and largest—food and drinks company to announce a ban on plastic straws, saying they'll be gone from stores around the world within two years. The coffee giant said Monday that it will be making a straw-less lid available at 8,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada for certain drinks, and estimated that its ban on plastic straws would eliminate more than one billion from the environment a year. The company’s announcement comes just one a week after its hometown, Seattle, banned single-use plastic straws and utensils at businesses that sell food or drinks. Starbucks said cold beverages, in which a straw is typically included, make up 50 percent of the drinks its sells.