That's The Last Straw (literally)

[George]

I too am all for getting rid of plastic straws and other things that are wasteful and harmful to the environment.

That said, I remember being incredulous, to the point of wondering if I was on Candid Camera, when a cash register jockey in Seattle wanted me to PAY for a plastic bag a couple years ago.

So maybe I'm not as green as I'd like to be. But yeah, get rid of straws. I'm capable of drinking from a cup without spilling the contents down the front of my shirt (most of the time).

When I waited tables at a nice restaurant many years ago and served a lot of soft drinks and iced tea with ice in glasses (glass glasses, not to-go cups), I learned that women usually want straws and men usually do not.

Yes, that's a generalization without any scientific method behind it, but often when I wouldn't bring straws along with drinks to a table, the women would often ask for a straw the second they saw I didn't bring any. I mean, they wanted one immediately! Men seldom asked for a straw.

I might never have noticed this trend, except there was a corporate spec that said carbonated drinks (Coke, Sprite, etc.) must come with a straw but iced tea did not. Or maybe it was the other way around - it was a long time ago. This was in the Carolinas where "sweet tea" is a widely-consumed beverage, so if you did things per corporate specs, a four-top (table with four guests) with two teas and two Cokes only got two straws with four drinks. This made the server look incompetent at best and downright rude at worst, so like most corporate specifications, it was often ignored.

But, it became a topic of discussion for us older, more serious servers who shared tips and tricks for moving faster and making more money. Not taking the time to stop for straws on the way out to a table with the initial drink order was one of those risks that sometimes seemed to pay off and sometimes didn't.

[Drachen596]

Its interesting to look at the past and see things that took place there that were/are more green and environmentally friendly than things we do now.

Paperbacks that were easily recyclable at the grocery. Glass bottles you were expected to return to the store which then went back to the factories to clean and reuse. I swear I remember glass soda bottles coming in reusable carry packaging as well that returned with them bottles. Im sure with a bit of thinking there are even more examples of this kind of stuff.

[Tom Servo]

There's a dairy out here that still does the returnable bottles, Broguiere's. Their milk is generally more expensive than the rest at the store, but you also get $1.50 back if you return the bottle.

They also make the best eggnog around Christmas-time. Man, is that good stuff.

[dodint]

[Rare White Ape]

I love the subtle reference to freedom right near the end.

[Tom Servo]

That's Reason for ya.

[Rare White Ape]

Yiz can take my reasons, bunt don’t take MAH FREEDUMBZ

[MR2 Fan]

from the (global) Disney Parks twitter today:

We’re making a global commitment to minimize single-use plastic waste by eliminating plastic straws, stirrers and polystyrene cups, reducing plastic shopping bags, and cutting in-room plastics by 80%

[SportWagon]

My wife got one of those nice barber-pole type paper straws yesterday in a classy restaurant. Well, actually the stripes (stripe) were green.

[SportWagon]

Its interesting to look at the past and see things that took place there that were/are more green and environmentally friendly than things we do now.

Paperbacks that were easily recyclable at the grocery. Glass bottles you were expected to return to the store which then went back to the factories to clean and reuse. I swear I remember glass soda bottles coming in reusable carry packaging as well that returned with them bottles. Im sure with a bit of thinking there are even more examples of this kind of stuff.

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/bee...well-to-stubby

But, actually, it says long-neck beer bottles are still re-used about 16 times (versus 20 for stubbies).