“It was never just about the straw ,” said Christine Figgener, 35, who was ca lling from Texas A&M University, where she is finishing a Ph.D. in marine biology. Her voice got stronger the more she ranted. “The straw was supposed to be a symbol, a poster child. It’s a low-hanging fruit.”

Ms. Figgener studies marine turtles, and in August 2015 she posted a video of one getting a plastic straw removed from its left nostril. The procedure seemed painful, and the turtle kept sneezing adorably. Over 40 million people have seen the clip on YouTube. A public crusade against plastic straws began.

They’re not just harmful to turtles. “Every piece of plastic that is being used and consumed, it sheds tiny chemicals, and they go into your body and into your food,” said Cyrill Gutsch, the founder of Parley for the Oceans, an organization known for mobilizing the fashion and music industries for environmental issues. “If you drive a car, for example, little parts of the tires go into the water and the rain and into your ear. Plastic is now found everywhere on the planet, and no one can protect him or herself from it.”

Which is why recycling plastic isn’t really a good solution, he said.

Bars, coffee shops, airlines and hotels across the country have responded, replacing plastic straws with paper, bamboo, hay, meat, pasta and candy varieties (remember drinking Coca-Cola out of a Twizzler as a kid?).