ASBURY PARK, NJ (EDITORIAL) – Shortly after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy ruled that plastic straws were illegal in the state, the absurdity of the law became clear.
You can walk into a convenience store and order a three-gallon plastic supersized drink in a plastic cup, but the straw had to be made of paper. You can go to a restaurant and they must give you paper straws, sometimes served individually wrapped in plastic.
Then it happened. The straws didn’t work. Customers complained. By the time you finished your 16-ounce drink, you had a tube of paper mache.
Recently, we’ve noticed many restaurants and retailers are now simply ignoring the straw ban here at the Jersey Shore. We’re not going to say which ones, but in a recent two-week survey, we found about 70% of the restaurants we visited went back to plastic straws.
Technically, restaurants can serve plastic straws, but by request only. But the unpopularity of paper straws has seen many just ditching the useless paper straws.
The law is a good one, to be honest, but the paper straw and reusable straw technology just isn’t there yet. Plus, New Jerseyans are mostly freedom-loving individuals who don’t want to be told by a guy who spent his life eating from a silver spoon to tell them what they can and can’t do.
The paper straw ban doesn’t need to be repealed, it’s being ignored. And it should be. Let’s hope somebody invents a cost-effective and practical recyclable solution because, yes the environment is important.