Supermac's have announced that they will be replacing all plastic straws with a paper alternative across their 116 restaurants.
This development is part of their "Glan agus Glas" (Clean and Green as Gaeilge) which aims to gradually eliminate all single-use plastics.
Supermac’s MD, Pat McDonagh, Minister for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment, Richard Bruton, TD, announced today the removal of plastic straws from 116 Supermac’s outlets throughout the country. #GlanAgusGlas #Supermacs #Ireland https://t.co/Osx0tDUmIL
— Supermac's (@SupermacsIRE) April 17, 2019
Managing Director Pat McDonagh made the announcement yesterday at Supermac's flagship restaurant in Dublin. Speaking about the move, McDonagh said:
We recognise the strain that single use plastics are having on our environment and that every little bit counts
We have already begun the removal of plastic straws form our 116 outlets and have started to replace them with paper ones.
We have several other initiatives that we will be rolling out in the coming year as well.
The Minister for the Environment, Richard Bruton described the move as a step towards "a more sustainable path".
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Last month the EU voted to ban all single-use plastics by 2021, soon plastic straws will be a thing of the past as we all move towards a more sustainable path.
The full list of single-use items that will be banned by this legislation include:
- Single-use plastic cutlery (forks, knives, spoons and chopsticks)
- Single-use plastic plates
- Plastic Straws
- Cotton bud sticks made of plastic
- Plastic balloon sticks
- Oxo-degradable plastics and food containers and expanded polystyrene cups
All items that we can happily live without. To put into context the issue of single-use plastic, here are a few key facts, 8m tonnes of plastic waste is dumped in the seas annually, one in three marine species have been found entangled in marine litter and if we continued at the rate we are going by 2050 oceans will carry more plastic than fish.
Making the switch to a paper straw won't kill us, not taking action on our current consumption habits will.
