Um. DC Has A ‘Plastic Straw Inspector’ Now

Is this what you want America? ‘Cause this is what the idiots in DC want everywhere.

DC now has a plastic straw inspector. I am not making this up. They have a dude from the D.C. Department of Energy going around handing out warning letters to restaurants caught displaying plastic straws. If you’re caught, you could be stuck with an $800 fine.

Nine years after the District instituted a nickel bag tax and three years after it banned plastic foam food containers, it has turned on plastic straws — the newest target of environmentalists trying to reduce millions of tons of plastic that ends up in trees, waterways and in the bellies of wildlife. The effort has been galvanized by a viral video of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nostril.

“It’s pretty absurd the amount of resources we put into creating plastic materials that we are using for five minutes to an hour, and then never again,” said Julie Lawson, director of D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s Office of the Clean City. “Single-use plastics are taking the same cultural place as tobacco where it’s socially unacceptable.”

For the record, I carry plastic straws with me basically everywhere. I’m plastic straw queen, and I’ve actually TRIED other straw alternatives and hate them all. Hay straws are too small, and the texture is weird. Pasta straws get sticky and turn your drink into noodle water. Metal straws are fine, but they’re a pain to carry around, and if you lose them, you feel like crap because you probably spent Actual Money on them. A missing plastic straw, however, isn’t really a loss.

Take it away, Greg Gutfeld.

Straw inspectors. It’s A Thing. Way to tackle the real issues around here, DC.

h/t Chicago Tribune