Teens Launch Campaign to Bring Awareness of Pollution Caused by Plastic Straws

October 12, 2016

What do two teens, a bunch of students, and disposable plastic straws equate to? One large campaign to bring awareness about the danger that plastic straws bring to our waterways and oceans.

Teens Carter and Olivia Ries, young founders of One More Generation (OMG), have set their sights on one of the most ubiquitous polluters that rarely anyone thinks about – single-use plastic straws. Americans use an estimated 500 million plastic straws every single day. Picture this: an entire day’s worth of plastic straws we use in one day would fill more than 127 school buses.

The One Less Straw campaign consists of three targets for participation: individual students, schools, and restaurants.

• Individual students can take a pledge to not use straws for 30 days. They ask one adult family member to do the same. If the student catches the adult using a straw during the 30 day period, the adult pays a pre-determined dollar amount to the student. The student donates the collected funds to OMG at the end of month. OMG will use the funds to teach more students about plastic pollution.
• The second group is schools who will sign up students to charge a family member but this time it becomes a fundraiser for the school. The school will use collected funds for environmental education in the school.
• The third target group is restaurants. During the 30 days, restaurants are asked not to hand out straws unless customers ask for them. Servers can wear buttons educating customers about the campaign. Restaurants save money on having to purchase less straws.

The One Less Straw campaign has over 120 partners, including Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs, to help spread the word. Carter and Olivia set a very ambitious target of 50,000 pledges for the entire campaign.

To take the pledge, visit: www.onelessstraw.org.

Ready to ditch the straw? Check out these resources for going strawless.

Have a creative idea to reduce or prevent marine debris in your school or community? Check out Bow Seat’s Marine Debris Creative Advocacy Competition. Lead a project that uses the creative arts to educate others about marine debris, inspire them to act, and engage them in preventing pollution from impacting our oceans. You can earn up to $5,000!