LIV-LAB

Jeremy Bentham described utility as the capacity for objects to produce benefits - pleasure, happiness, and good - or to prevent harm, such as pain and unhappiness.  By this definition, it could be argued that the drinking straw is one of the most utilitarian objects ever designed and mass-produced at its current scale.

The conversation around the straw is no longer limited to pleasure, convenience, necessity, or the environment. The straw has become capable of defining one’s identity, exposing disabilities, and giving way to assumptions about one’s political leanings.
 

Government efforts to limit federal purchasing of single-use plastic straws in 2021 in favor of paper-based alternatives was celebrated by some and condemned by others. It wasn’t a stick, but a straw that drew a line in the sand, transforming a simple utilitarian object into fodder for the culture wars and further dividing American voters. The current political landscape created two factions, the paper-straw-sucking liberals and plastic-straw-sucking MAGA conservatives.

 
What some saw as a minor attempt to reduce unnecessary plastic waste, others viewed as an infringement on personal freedoms. In the process, our relationship with this otherwise insignificant object fundamentally changed, creating a shift in voters' relationships with the straw.

In 2025, plastic straws were reinstated by executive order as a supposedly superior alternative to paper. The fight for the plastic straw became symbolic of reclaiming personal freedoms that some Americans felt were under attack.

The unnecessary nature of single-use plastic straws for most people had become common knowledge, and their environmental toll was evident and well documented. Yet alternative truths began to supplant facts.

For the environmental movement, the straw became the metaphorical poster child for plastic waste. It was never the core issue, and it was far from the biggest. The attempt to create a common enemy might have been successful if the straw were not such an intimate object. It is familiar. We have all had experiences with it and by this time we had made our decision, we either loved them or we hated them. 

For many who oppose single-use plastic straws, there was a recurring dilemma: every time a straw was offered, they had to make the conscious decision to reject it. In that sense, a ban could come as a relief. It freed everyone from the personal responsibility of having to say, “No, thank you.”

Without that intervention, there was always the internal dialogue of whether or not to use the straw when it was given, accepting the gift and justifying the decision as a one-off.

Public ridicule, however, might have been the most effective anti-straw campaign of my youth.

Straws were for ladies because ladies wore lipstick.

To quote a friend:

“The only acceptable reason for a man to use a straw is to snort cocaine.”

I recall many times in my youth watching the men in my community remove the lid from their cup, straw still in place, so they could drink directly from the rim. They were far too "MANLY" to use something intended for ladies and children. To drink from a straw risked implying that, as a man, you might enjoy things associated with women, or that you were somehow childlike.

Long before the drinking straw became a symbol of environmental responsibility or political defiance, it was already capable of communicating something about who you were, or, perhaps more importantly, who you were afraid others might think you were.

It is ironic, then, that the political right, with its embrace of hyper-masculinity, has become the single-use plastic straw’s greatest champion.

The caveat is that, for most people, straws are not necessary. They are a choice. Yet they live in a liminal space between essential and nonessential objects. They tap into pleasure and convenience, and convenience begets pleasure.  

If you want to motivate Americans, make them uncomfortable. Tell them they can’t have something. Capitalism’s ethos is maximizing return on investment, the most pleasure for the least amount of effort.

Perhaps the more democratic way to address single-use plastic straws is through capitalism itself: don’t patronize businesses whose environmental practices conflict with your values. Stop making exceptions for perpetual bad actors. At the same time, allow people who need or choose to use straws the right to that convenience.

Imposing one group’s will over another through legislation will never address the core issues of plastic pollution. Meaningful change requires something more difficult: education, personal responsibility, better alternatives, and a willingness to reconsider our own consumption rather than simply regulating someone else’s.

Efforts to phase out single-use plastics have been undermined, turning something we should all be able to rally around into yet another us-versus-them issue.

The statistic that helped kick-start the movement against single-use plastic straws estimated that the United States used approximately 500 million straws every day. While that figure has since been disputed, it became one of the defining statistics used by advocates calling for widespread bans on single-use plastic straws.

Using that estimate, this sculpture is equal to the amount of plastic from plastic straws discarded in the United States every five seconds.

12 of these sculptures are discarded every minute.  

720 are discarded every hour.  

17,280 are discarded every day. 

6,307,200 are discarded every year.

Straws do suck, literally and metaphorically. Freedom doesn't have to.