Plastic straws may soon be harder to come by in LA.
The Los Angeles City Council today approved an ordinance to ban all restaurants from automatically giving customers plastic straws.
"Although straws are a small part of the eight million metric tons of plastic that end up in our ocean every year, we know that it is one we can have really great control over, both on a personal choice, and to effectuate a policy that will help highlight the plight of our world's oceans and the danger and the threat on the environment of plastic straw waste," O'Farrell said before the vote.
The council in December also directed the Bureau of Sanitation to report back regarding the feasibility of phasing out single-use plastic straws by 2021, and to work with the Department of Disability on methods and approaches to mitigate impacts to the disabled community associated with the phase-out. O'Farrell said he is looking forward to reviewing the report.
"The two-year phase-out gives restaurants and bars the time they need to deplete their current inventory of plastic straws, and it gives the industry time to pioneer biodegradable and environmentally friendly alternatives for mass consumption," O'Farrell said in December.
The motion that led to the straws-on-request ordinance cited a Los Angeles Times editorial which stated that Americans use -- and almost immediately discard -- up to a half-billion plastic beverage straws each day.
State law already does so at full-service restaurants. Los Angeles's ordinance would expand it to fast-food places, take-out joints and the like and would go into effect on Earth Day for larger establishments.
Smaller ones would have until Oct 1 to make the switch.
Meanwhile, the city council is looking at completely phasing out plastic straws by 2021.
Autumn Elliott, with Disability Rights California, says such a ban could have unintended consequences.
"It's really critical for some people with disabilities to be able to receive a straw if they do request it who can't drink a beverage despite picking it up and drinking it through the edge of the cup," she said.
Elliot says plastic is the only viable option. Paper straws are too flimsy and glass ones can shatter.