In 2020, when Kamela Harris ran for president, she said that she favored banning plastic straws; however, during the presidential campaign in 2024, Harris said that she had changed her position and now opposed banning plastic straws. Nevertheless, Donald Trump said that Harris was still a “threat” to plastic straws. In February 2025, Donald Trump, a month into his second presidency, signed an executive order prohibiting federal agencies from buying paper straws and called for a nationwide strategy to ban them nationwide. Trump stated that he was banning paper straws because: “These things don’t work. I’ve had them many times, and on occasion they break, they explode. If something’s hot, they don’t last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds. It’s a ridiculous situation.” Trump said that paper straws “disgustingly dissolve” in the mouths of consumers.
The truth is that paper straws have changed a lot since the 1960s. That’s when plastic straws began replacing paper straws. Back then, paper straws were much thinner than paper straws today, and they often did collapse before you finished your Coke; however, they never ‘dissolved’ in your mouth. Today, paper straws are really more like cardboard straws. But more importantly, paper straws back in the 1960s didn’t explode, and they still don’t. Is it possible that Mr. Trump really believes that paper straws explode? He says he has used a lot of them.
DO AMERICANS REALLY USE 500 MILLION PLASTIC STRAWS A DAY?
This story sounds so unbelievable that you may find it hard to believe. Even though I am writing it myself, I find it hard to believe. In February 2011, a 9-year old boy in Vermont made up the number, and it stuck. It really is that simple. In late 2011, articles started appearing in newspapers and on TV news channels that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day. It was the first time that anyone had any idea how many plastic straws Americans were using and disposing of daily, and people were shocked by the number, but apparently, nobody was asking where that number came from. Respected sources, such as the New York Times, the National Geographic, and U.S. Park Service were saying that Americans used 500 million plastic straws a day, so people just assumed there had to be evidence to back it up. But there wasn’t. Politicians in California, Washington, Canada, and many other places wrote and passed laws banning the sale of plastic straws citing the 500 million straw number. Some cities, including Los Angeles, passed laws either banning plastic straws outright or allowed restaurants and bars to continue to give customers plastic straws, but only if the customer requested one. That policy is now pretty common here in California. Starbucks citied the 500 million a day number when they announced that they were getting rid of plastic straws.
The origin of this story has finally been traced back to its source. In 2011, Milo Cress, an elementary school student in Shelburne, Vermont, began to wonder how many plastic straws are used in the U.S. every day. He contacted plastic manufacturers, but none of them knew how many straws were being made daily, so Milo guessed how many plastic straws were being used every day, including those on juice boxes, and multiplied that number by 365. He included this number in a homework assignment, and that number began to get mentioned in local news reports. Those stories kept getting repeated, and today, laws have been passed all over the world based on Milo’s guess when he was 9 years old. Apparently, even now, nobody knows how many plastic straws are used in the U.S. every day, but the number of 500 million a day is generally regarded as wildly too high. After all, that is substantially higher than the entire population of the U.S., and lots of people never use straws or use them infrequently.
“My Name is Mary.” I once received an application from a woman named Mary. After I looked at her application, I said: “Mary, you forgot to write down your last name. You also forgot to fill in a lot of the rest of the form as well.” She said: “I didn’t forget. I don’t like to give out personal information about myself.” I said: “I don’t understand. Mary, if I rented this apartment to you, what name would I put on the lease?” She said: “Mary.” I said: “Mary, I can’t rent an apartment to someone who I can’t identify.” She said: “You have to.” I said: “Why?” She said: “Because I’m protected by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act.) I’m mentally ill, which is why I didn’t put down my last name on your application form. I have a letter from my psychiatrist.” She didn’t show me the letter but told me that the letter said that Mary suffered from ‘paranoid personality disorder’.
My Goons. I found out later that during my showing of the apartment, Mary had a private chat with the current tenant living in the apartment. After Mary left, my tenant said that Mary told him that she took a bus to see the apartment because if she had come in her car, “Your landlord could have seen my license plate number and then his goons would be able to track me down.” That didn’t shock me. I had met people before who believed that landlords in Berkeley have hired goons to terrorize their tenants. Although this may sound self-serving, I can assure you that Berkeley landlords do not have ‘goons’.
Paranoia. I didn’t rent the apartment to Mary, but I did call my lawyer to make sure that I couldn’t be sued. It is sometimes impossible for a landlord to know for sure if a prospective tenant is protected by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). Under the ADA law, if an applicant for an apartment tells a landlord that he or she is disabled, the landlord cannot ask the applicant any questions about the disability. My lawyer told me that while this woman certainly sounded paranoid, I was on sound legal footing in my decision to reject her application. No rational landlord is going to rent an apartment to someone who he cannot identify.