A growing number of restaurants and pubs are listening to environmental campaigners and taking a stand against plastic straws

When the boss of UK pub chain Oakman Inns, Peter Borg-Neal, was shown a YouTube video (warning: graphic content) of a turtle in obvious pain as a plastic straw is removed from its nostril, he reflected on his company’s own straw consumption: 100,000 per month.

At least that was the figure until last week, when the company announced it was restricting the use of plastic straws across its 17 pubs and called on other businesses in the hospitality sector to follow suit. Customers at Oakman Inns will no longer receive a straw automatically, but a supply will be available for those that specifically ask for one.

“My response when I saw the video was the same as anyone else. It’s appalling and horribly unnecessary,” says Borg-Neal. “Those straws simply should not be in the sea.”

The effort to rein in plastic consumption suggests that mounting pressure on the issue from environmental and animal welfare groups is being felt in the pub and restaurant trade.

Like other small bits of plastic waste, straws frequently get into our rivers and oceans, and on to our roadsides. The movement against them, spearheaded by international campaigns such as The Last Plastic Straw and Strawless Ocean has gathered pace in recent years and is gradually winning backing from business.

Other UK companies to have taken action include burger-and-beer chain MEATliquor, which banned plastic straws in January.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Peter Borg-Neal, CEO of Oakman pubs: plastic straw pollution is ‘horribly unnecessary’, he says. Photograph: PR

Removing plastic straws from bars and restaurants sounds like one of the easier sustainability challenges. The very elderly and the very young may well require a straw to drink with, as may some disabled people. But surely the majority of us can go without?

Theoretically yes, says Tom Tanner, spokesman for Sustainable Restaurant Association, an industry group that counts Oakman Inns among its members. But for many consumers, drinking with a straw in a bar or restaurant is an ingrained habit, he says, and it can be hard for staff to tell customers what to do.

The hope of Tanner and others is that consumers will come to realise that they can do without straws, just as they have realised they can do without plastic shopping bags – UK supermarkets reported an 85% drop in carrier bag use after a 5p levy was introduced in England in late 2015, proving that rapid behavioural change is possible with the right incentives.

Rather than push for their own levy, however, campaigners against straws have so far focused on persuasion and awareness raising.

“If asked, I’m sure a lot of customers don’t actually want one [a straw] anyway,” says Jamie Poulton, co-owner of Randall & Aubin, one of a small cohort of restaurants in London’s Soho district to get rid of plastic straws back in 2012 as part of the Straw Wars campaign, which has signed up 72 members to date.

Alternative straws

For businesses that do take action, they still need something for when customers really do want a straw. Do sustainable alternatives exist?

Randall & Aubin opted for paper substitutes, but these have a reputation for going claggy. Oakman Inns intends to introduce a compostable straw, says Borg-Neal, but is yet to decide on a supplier.

In fact, there are plenty to choose from. Recent years have seen an eco explosion in the catering disposables market, with companies such as Biopac, Enviropack and Purple Planet Supplies offering everything from recyclable cups to biodegradable cutlery.

These products come at a cost: 7mm biodegradable straws made by Vegware, a market leader that manufactures compostable straws from plant-based polymer PLA, work out at £0.016 per straw, more than double the average price for the bog-standard plastic variety.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Vegware sells compostable straws made from plant-based polymer PLA, but making sure they actually get composted is a challenge. Photograph: PR

There is also the challenge of making sure they actually get composted – not a given for compostable products. Here pubs and restaurants are at an advantage says Martin Kersh, executive director at the Food Packaging Association.

Unlike beverage companies, whose drinks are consumed all over the place, making collection highly problematic, pubs and restaurants present a “fairly closed environment”, he says. This means straws can be collected by bar staff together with drinks and separated out for composting.

There is another solution: reusable straws. Rachelle Strauss, organiser of the UK’s annual Zero Waste Week, suggests stainless steel or glass versions for punters to carry around with them, in the mould of bring-your-own coffee cups.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone but the most hardened eco-enthusiasts hitting the town with their own straw at the ready, however. Simply ditching the straw may in the end be the simplest solution.

That’s certainly the hope of MEATliquor co-founder Yianni Papoutsis. “I think in five years’ time it will become the norm for drinks to be served without plastic straws,” he says. “If large and small operators in the UK can make this normal practice, then the waste reduction would be huge.”

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