President Donald Trump is joining criticism of the movement to ban single-use plastic straws – as his campaign markets packs of the items on his campaign web site.
‘What about the plates and the wrappers and everything else that are much bigger?’ Trump responded when asked about the issue by DailyMail.com on Friday.
‘I do think we have bigger problems than plastic straws,’ he said, a day after his campaign thumbed its collective nose at the environmental push to eliminate them and began posting online ads selling Trump straws online.
‘You know, it’s interesting about plastic straws: So you have a little straw, but what about the plates, the wrappers and everything else that are much bigger, and they’re made of the same material? So the straws are interesting. Everybody focuses on the straws. There’s a lot of things to focus – but it’s an interesting question,’ he said as he left the White House for his New Jersey golf course.
‘STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP and buy your pack of recyclable straws today,” reads promotional language marketing the straws on the online store of his campaign web site.
Trump criticized the movement to ban plastic straws Friday
‘Liberal paper straws don’t work,’ claims the ad. It says the straws are ‘BPA free,’ laser-engraved, and reusable.
The pitch trolls the growing nationwide effort to ban the use of single use plastic straws and replace them with paper ones – sometimes inviting pushback both from some libertarians and conservatives as well as lemonade sippers and cocktail connoisseurs who complain paper straws don’t hold up.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted: ‘Making Straws Great Again #Trump2020,’ and promoted the ad.
The Trump campaign is selling packs of plastic straws for $15
SIP IT: From left Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Melania Trump and others listen as Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton speaks during the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at Waldorf Astoria October 20, 2016 in New York, New York
Close Up Of Hand Holding Plastic Straws Polluting Beach
Plastic garbage lying on the Aegean sea beach near Athens on June 26, 2018 , Greece . The Mediterranean is one of the seas with the highest levels of plastic pollution in the world. More than 200 million tourists visit the Mediterranean each year causing the 40% increase in marine litter during summer using single use plastics including straws and stirrers, plastic cups, water bottles , inflatable pool toys etc which leads to the general pollution of water and beaches along Mediterranean
Plastic garbage lying on the Aegean sea beach near Athens on June 26, 2018 , Greece
DRINK IT IN: ‘What about the plates and the wrappers and everything else that are much bigger?’ Trump said, criticizing the push to ban plastic straws in restaurants
Sea Turtle with Straw up its Nostril
The straws say ‘TRUMP’ on one end.
California instituted a restaurant ban on plastic straws that began this year, while companies like Starbucks are moving away from using them.
The vast majority of plastic ends up in land-fills. There have been increased reports over the last year about the ‘great ocean patch’ of plastic matter.
Although straws are not the leading cause of plastic, they are often not recycled in part due to their small size, and can injure wildlife. According to a study cited by National Geographic, 91 per cent of plastic is not recycled. It states that plastic takes 400 years to degrade, with 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic already having been produced.
Trump jumped into the issue hours after meeting Apollo 11 Astronauts and family members, where crew member Michael Collins touted the benefits of reusable launch capabilities, then made a broader point.
‘That is the most dramatic new idea – reusability. How many things in our life to we use once in our life and then throw away? Too many. Maybe that reusability doctrine could be a little more widespread in the rest of our economy,’ Collins said.
The brought a smile from Trump, who replied: ‘Pretty good point. That’s a very good point.’
Environmental group Greenpeace shot back with a statement calling Trump’s presidency a ‘cheap throwaway,’ and adding: ‘The vast majority of plastic straws are not recycled in the U.S., which means they end up incinerated, piling up in landfills, or polluting our oceans.’