If you finish the "last cup of milk tea" in winter at the end of 2020, you may find that the milk tea shop no longer provides you with plastic straws that can be used to pop open the milk tea cup. Not only that, the straws for hot drinks and cold drinks provided by tea shops may be different, some of which are closer to the original plastic taste, and some are awkward to use.

In fact, these changes that have taken place around us reflect the strong attack of the "plastic limit order". As early as March 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment jointly issued the "Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution", which severely attacked plastic pollution, indicating China's determination to protect the ecology, fight plastic pollution and move towards high-quality development.

Among the plastic products whose use is prohibited or restricted, "non-degradable plastic straws" are impressively listed, which has become the "key object" of national ecological protection and plastic pollution control. According to the Opinions, by the end of 2020, non-degradable disposable plastic straws shall not be used in the catering industry in China. From this, we can see that by the end of 2020, straws in major catering industries will be "more replaced".

At the same time that plastic straws were kicked off the stage, the era of paper straws came. A number of media reported that nationwide, the iterative movement of straw renewal was in full swing, and restaurants, large and small, responded to the call and took the initiative to change into environmentally friendly straw to contribute their own strength to environmental protection.

However, behind the popularity and popularization of paper straws, there have been different voices.

From 20 18, there is doubt. Skeptics pointed out that the production process of paper straws is polluted, with high production cost, difficult recycling and unsatisfactory degradation time.

As an ordinary person, how should we treat the strong attack of paper straws? Paper straws, is it really an IQ tax?

The World Trend of "Goodbye, Plastic Pipes"

In fact, China's "Plastic Restriction Order" leads the world in the strictness of production, use and sales of plastic products.

As far as plastic straws are concerned, it has been reported that since 20 18, catering enterprises such as McDonald's and Starbucks have started environmental protection actions to replace plastic straws. The action was widely carried out in European and American countries, because people petitioned to "limit plastics". As far as substitutes are concerned, the two companies mainly use paper straws and cups without straws. It can be said that the change of plastic straws in China responds to this international trend of environmental protection.

However, like China's experience, this alternative activity has been questioned by many people in the international community. It is reported that McDonald's paper straws cannot be recycled and can only be treated as "general garbage".

Regarding the irrecoverable problem of paper straws, Aardvark Straws, an American paper straw company, said that treating them as "general garbage" would not affect the environmental protection of paper straws. Because paper straws will degrade naturally no matter where they are placed. Their tests found that the degradation time of paper straws was 6 months in the yard and 2 years in the ocean. Therefore, from the perspective of degradation time, paper straws are of course environmentally friendly.

But the problem is more complicated than the surface dispute of "paper and plastic". The inner side of the paper straw is covered with a film, which has become the focus of skeptics' comments on "changing the soup without changing the medicine", because this film is the reason why the paper straw is difficult to recycle.