Speaker 1: Sports stadiums are stepping up to the plate in the
Speaker 1: fight against water pollution. This week on Parts per Billion,
Speaker 1: the effort to take plastic straws out of the ballgame.
Speaker 1: Hello there, and welcome back to Parts per Billion, the
Speaker 1: policy podcast from Bloomberg Environment. As always, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: David Schultz. What's better than going to a ballgame and
Speaker 1: getting a big, ice cold beverage? And what goes better
Speaker 1: with a beverage than a what you thought I was
Speaker 1: gonna say, a hot dog? No, a straw? Well, I'll
Speaker 1: use straw. Fans out there, brace yourselves because Bloomberg Environment
Speaker 1: Sam McQuillan is reporting that many sporting venues are actually
Speaker 1: phasing out straws or banning them all together in the
Speaker 1: name of cutting down on pollution. And Sam actually joins
Speaker 1: us in the studio now to explain what's going on here.
Speaker 1: Hello Sam, Hello David. How's it going pretty good? But
Speaker 1: first off, before we get into sports stadiums in particular,
Speaker 1: why are people trying to get rid of plastic straws
Speaker 1: in the first place? Like, I've heard a lot about this,
Speaker 1: and you know it's almost going viral. People banning straws.
Speaker 1: What's wrong? With straws. Well, that's a great question, David.
Speaker 1: It's really become a sweeping movement, not just in the
Speaker 1: US but globally. So about eight million tons of plastic
Speaker 1: enter the ocean every year. And there was a contested
Speaker 1: statistic a couple of years ago by a boy in
Speaker 1: Vermont that he did a studium that said five hundred
Speaker 1: million straws enter the water a day, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people actually kind of ran with that statistic and
Speaker 1: it was kind of passed off as a fact. So
Speaker 1: that kind of created a lot of an alarming thing
Speaker 1: around the plastic straw movement and really helped it take off.
Speaker 1: There's also a video I don't know if you've seen it,
Speaker 1: but of a turtle with a plastic straw up its nose,
Speaker 1: which really got people up in arms. And it's just
Speaker 1: an easy thing to do to reduce plastic pollution. But
Speaker 1: it sounds like this is not just something that Starbucks
Speaker 1: is doing or as sort of other you know businesses.
Speaker 1: This is big. You know, sports stadiums are taking the
Speaker 1: lead and getting rid of straws, and I understand there's
Speaker 1: some pretty big star power behind it, especially in Seattle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically the whole movement can pretty much be tracked down
Speaker 1: to Seattle. If you've ever watched Entourage, the guy who
Speaker 1: plays Vincent Chase, who's the main character, Adrian Greenier. I
Speaker 1: hope I'm saying his name right, my pete. It's either
Speaker 1: it's either that or it's Gregnern maybe the French world
Speaker 1: sounding version. Well we'll go, we'll stradle the line, we'll
Speaker 1: say it could be one or the other. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he co founded an organization called Lonely Whale, which their
Speaker 1: big mission is to have a strawless ocean, and they've
Speaker 1: worked with they've kind of used his star power to
Speaker 1: work with businesses and restaurants in Seattle to get rid
Speaker 1: of plastic straws. And they've actually teamed up with the Seahawks.
Speaker 1: And Russell Wilson has been a big proponent of the
Speaker 1: Ditch the straw movement. Russell for those who aren't sports
Speaker 1: fans out there, Russell Wilson's star quarterback, super Bowl winning quarterback,
Speaker 1: Russell Wilson. And it's not just sports stadiums either, it's
Speaker 1: also concert venues. Can you tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: about that and the connection from the straw band to
Speaker 1: the soft rocker Jack Johnson. What's going on here? Jack
Speaker 1: Johnson was very against plastic straws for whatever reason. I
Speaker 1: guess he's an environmentalist and Live Nation kind of was
Speaker 1: inspired by him just to get rid of their own
Speaker 1: plastic straws. So they went through this process where they
Speaker 1: kind of just ditched the straw and now forty five
Speaker 1: of their venues across the United States they no longer
Speaker 1: will be issuing plastic straws. Yeah, and you spoke with
Speaker 1: Live Nation's head of sustainability, Lucy August Perna, and she
Speaker 1: talked about the pilot project that they started in response
Speaker 1: to Jack Johnson's demands. So we did it at his shows,
Speaker 1: at every show of his last year. With success, we
Speaker 1: were able to remove the plastic straws and really gauge
Speaker 1: the response from the fans. And this is what showed
Speaker 1: us that it could work. That was Lucy August Purna,
Speaker 1: the head of sustainability with the concert business megabusiness Live Nation.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of a weird story. We have
Speaker 1: a turtle with the straw up. It's knows. We have
Speaker 1: the guy from Entourage, Russell Wilson, Jack Johnson. What other
Speaker 1: stadiums are banning straws. Is this just in Seattle? Is
Speaker 1: this just a you know, Jack Johnson, Russell Wilson thing,
Speaker 1: or are there other places that are also banning this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quite a motley crew. You could add Tom Brady
Speaker 1: to that list as well. He recently came out with
Speaker 1: his own video condemning plastic straws. It's actually pretty funny,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the Yankees, the Barners, the White Sox, the Giants,
Speaker 1: Oracle Arena, the Warriors, they're all ditching the plastic straw
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of other stars are kind of
Speaker 1: in the background and organizations are trying to get them
Speaker 1: to come out as well. So one thing I thought
Speaker 1: was really interesting from your story that you did on
Speaker 1: this recently is that it sounds like they're some stadiums
Speaker 1: are getting rid of plastic straws mostly but not all
Speaker 1: the way that they still have some in case people
Speaker 1: need them. Can you talk about, you know, how some
Speaker 1: places are keeping a few straws on hand just in case.
Speaker 1: One of the problems it has faced is people with
Speaker 1: disabilities sometimes they can't sip a drink without a straw,
Speaker 1: so stadiums want to make sure that they have straws
Speaker 1: for those who need them. A lot of places are
Speaker 1: moving to paper straws for those who need them, or
Speaker 1: only reserving plastic straws for those who need them and
Speaker 1: not just handing them out with a drink. So if
Speaker 1: you request one, you could probably still get one, but
Speaker 1: it's still cutting back a lot of that plastic being used. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And Lucy august Pirna from Live Nation talked about this
Speaker 1: that her company was a little worried that they would
Speaker 1: anger some of their fans and their customers, but it
Speaker 1: sounds like it turned out okay for them. It was
Speaker 1: mostly the hurdle of getting over some of the old
Speaker 1: habits and you know, fear that there was going to
Speaker 1: be backlashed, and I think the pilot helped us overcome that.
Speaker 1: And you know, we still have a straw to provide
Speaker 1: if a fan asked for it, it just happens to
Speaker 1: be paper. So yeah, it really has been as far
Speaker 1: as you know big sustainability moves, this is one of
Speaker 1: the simpler ones to do. So Sam, let's take a
Speaker 1: step back and sort of consider what's going on here
Speaker 1: that's driving this movement. You know, I don't get the
Speaker 1: sense that sports franchises really want to get involved in
Speaker 1: sort of a political issue very much. We've all seen
Speaker 1: what happened with the NFL and the anthem protests. They're
Speaker 1: sort of desperately trying to get politics out of the
Speaker 1: game there. But it seems like here they're embracing this,
Speaker 1: you know, environmental issue. So what's going on here? Why
Speaker 1: are they these franchises getting involved. That's a great point, David,
Speaker 1: about the controversy of the anthem protest. This is so
Speaker 1: not controversial compared to the anthem protest. No one is
Speaker 1: really up in arms about people getting rid of plastic straws.
Speaker 1: There's not the big straw lobby. Yeah, well they if
Speaker 1: there is one, they don't have a presence in sports
Speaker 1: at the moment. Yeah. Basically, it's been a really easy
Speaker 1: issue to do to stop giving out out plastic straws.
Speaker 1: You simply stop giving them out. So it's not like
Speaker 1: they need to go through all these checks and balances
Speaker 1: and a rigorous process. It's easy to do. It doesn't
Speaker 1: anger anybody. And if sports teams can be out here saying, hey,
Speaker 1: look at look, we're leading the front on this issue
Speaker 1: and it's not even a controversial issue. It's it's so much.
Speaker 1: It's like a perfect match made in heaven for them.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say this is sort of a layup,
Speaker 1: not at three points, Yes, you could say that. Well,
Speaker 1: that was Sam McQuillan talking about Straws. For more of
Speaker 1: his reporting, visit our website at News dot Bloomberg, Environment
Speaker 1: dot com. That's news dot Bloomberg, environment dot com. Today's
Speaker 1: episode of Parks Pavilion was produced by myself as well
Speaker 1: as Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel. Our editor is Marissa Horne,
Speaker 1: and our audio engineer is Nicholas and Zelada. The music
Speaker 1: for this episode is a message by Jizarre. It was
Speaker 1: used under a Creative Commons license. More information could be
Speaker 1: found at Better with Music dot Coms b used to
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