Just Say No to a Straw!

Or that in the deepest part of the ocean, in the middle of the Pacific, there’s a garbage patch roughly the size of Texas?

In celebration of World Water Day back in March, Bacardi announced an in-house initiative to remove straws and stirrers from all company events. Bacardi is promoting the practice companywide as part of its ongoing environmental campaign.

Closely related to this, coming up on April 22 is World Earth Day and since we do have a soft spot for the birds and fish and baby seals and the rest of the ocean creatures, we thought we'd take a closer look.



And the facts are quite shocking: Straws and stirrers are ranked No. 7 on the list of top-10 items collected in the ocean! Other offenders include cigarette butts, food containers, plastic bottles, plastic bags, bottle caps and plastic silverware… All things we can all do something about.

A part of the solution could be for everyone to just add, “No straw, please,” to every drink order. When you think about it, if a cocktail is good, it's good, not really all that important whether you slurp it or sip it, right?

If you're tempted to disagree, just go and and think about it this way: Every piece of plastic ever made still exists somewhere, most likely in the ocean. The research indicates that the ocean is filled with about 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris and there are predictions that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050. And that's not figuratively speaking.

Next time you’re at a bar, club or other event, you know, just gettin’ your groove on, remember to order your next cocktail with no straw. And for those of you who only like to drink your spirits neat or on rocks, you can now explain to everyone that you've been doing it for the environment the whole time.

What do you say, are you in on the "no straws" initiative?