Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, has shifted her stance on banning plastic straws, according to her campaign.
The official mentioned that if Harris wins the White House race, she will prioritize climate-related initiatives, including promoting the development of more effective eco-friendly options to single-use plastic straws than paper ones.
Harris emphasized the importance of fostering innovation to discover superior alternatives to plastic.
A request for clarification on the rationale behind the policy reversal from the Harris campaign went unanswered.
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An advertisement for Trump-branded plastic straws on his official presidential campaign website in 2019 stated: “Liberal paper straws don’t work. Stand with President Trump and buy your recyclable straws today.”
Jason Miller, an adviser to the Trump campaign, highlighted plastic straw bans to criticize Harris’s policy positions in an interview on NBC in July.
“Kamala Harris had a long, liberal, radical record in California well before she even became vice president; I mean, heck, she wants to get rid of plastic straws,” he remarked at the time.
Efforts to ban plastic straws in the U.S. have had varying degrees of success, with some major cities and states implementing partial bans. While plastic straws constitute a small portion of plastic waste, these bans serve as symbolic steps in broader initiatives to reduce single-use plastics.
Advocates for alternatives to single-use plastic are now turning their attention to more comprehensive strategies for reducing plastic waste, such as reforms in packaging and improved recycling systems.
When asked in 2019 about his stance on plastic straw bans, Trump indicated that he had more pressing issues to address and highlighted the minimal impact of straw waste compared to other forms of plastic waste.
“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?” he pointed out to reporters. “Everybody focuses on the straws. There’s a lot of other things to focus on.”
