SIAN Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet & Plastic Health Council, has slammed President Donald Trump’s plans to reverse the move to phase out plastic straws across the US Government.
President Trump announced on social media that he would be signing an executive order “ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!”
Sian Sutherland described the plastic straw as a metaphor for the world’s ‘single-use addiction’, adding that it symbolises the billions of tonnes of plastic used for moments.
“The reversal of Biden era measures to halt the ever-growing mountain of toxic waste is a devastating but unsurprising act of shortsightedness from a Trump administration set on fabricating its own reality and disregarding the facts,” Sian said. “The cost to the US economy from the health impacts of plastic chemicals is $250 billion per year.
“If Trump wants to put America first at every corner and Make America Healthy Again, he would do well to recognise that the plastic pollution crisis is not just bottles on a beach, or untidy streets, it’s a human health crisis that is eating away at his economy, filling our brains and neutering next generations.  If this is how he will reverse the decline of America, history will judge him harshly.”
