A video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw lodge in its nose went viral and has raised awareness, showing the cruel reality on how a plastic straw can affect living animals. However, people still use these plastic straws.

There are many factors that make a person use plastic straw, but it is usually due to habit. Plastic straw itself would come along with the drink. It is made that way by so many restaurants, at least in Indonesia. Rarely does the customer get to choose if they want to use the plastic straw or not by providing a dispenser.

In Indonesia, 93 million plastic straw is used daily. This is based on the data from Divers Clean Action (DCA) 2018. Although fast food chain like KFC and McDonald has said no to plastic straws, the issue of plastic straw still remains in other restaurants.

Since KFC and McDonald has started the steps to say no to plastic straw, why not make a regulation about it? I want my country to establish a plastic straw ban, but I do notice that certain people still need them whether due to special needs or other reasons. So if it’s possible, there could be a plastic straw ban with exceptions of certain people that are specified. This is a policy I wish my country would establish, but it doesn’t seem possible for now because there are a lot of other factors to consider such as people’s response.