Burlington, Vermont - March 10, 2011
Milo Cress is on a mission.
"I'm not the straw police. I'm not saying no straws, no straws at all," he said.
But this fourth-grader is saying people should think twice about the environmental impact of using a plastic straw.
"I thought I could make a difference and that's something that kids can do something about," Milo explained. "All they have to do is say no straw please."
"I think if someone brings me a straw it's a habit. I open it and I use it," said Shannon Pitonyak, a customer at The Spot.
And that's the exact mindset Milo is working to change. He began asking local restaurants to help him out with his strawless initiative, after eating at The Spot in Burlington. Here, customers aren't given a straw unless they ask and most don't mind.
"It's a smoothie, so it's pretty thick. So I thought drinking it without a straw might be a little bit easier and I don't really like plastic anyway," customer Trista Riegrt said.
"I don't think people really recognize the difference when we don't give them one," said Russ Scully, who owns The Spot. "And so if we can do our part as a tiny little restaurant in reducing the amount of trash we're creating with consumers that come in and out of here then I feel like we're doing a good thing."
Leunig's Bistro in Burlington thinks Milo is really onto something.
"At home I don't drink out of a straw. Why should I have a straw when I go out?" noted Bob Conlon, the co-owner of Leunig's. "It's not like we're saying you can't have a straw. But people start thinking; do I really want a straw?"
More than 500 million straws are used in the U.S. every day, which averages out to 1.6 straws per person. So that means in Vermont alone 1 million straws are being plunked into drinks on a daily basis.
"Plastic consumption is going to be a huge topic. It is now and it's going to continue to be a big story in terms of waste management," Scully said.
In addition to keeping them out of the landfill, restaurant owners also say the policy change could result in a cost savings.
"Figure a straw costs me a penny, two pennies, so if I sell 10,000 drinks in a week-- two pennies a drink is eventually a lot of money," Conlon said.
As for Milo, he has his heart set on one goal.
"We could work ourselves out of the job," he said.
In the meantime, Milo will continue his charge of converting more restaurants to opt out of automatic plastic.
Click here for more on Milo's mission.
Jennifer Reading - WCAX News
