Created by the Surfrider Foundation, The Strawless Challenge is an opportunity to raise awareness about single use plastics and its effect on marine life. Currently, in the United States, an estimated 500 million straws are used every day. That is enough straws to wrap around the earth 2.5 times. Straws are the most common item found at beach clean ups. In 2017, the Ventura Surfrider Chapter found over 2550 plastic straws just in the Promenade area alone!
One of the main issues is that plastics are not biodegradable, it photodegrades into smaller pieces of plastics. Plastics have an enduring effect on marine life quality. Toxins from the plastic are ingested by marine life, and ultimately the toxins work their way up the food chain.
We're asking for volunteers to join us on June 10th at Mission Plaza park on Main St. From 2-4 to help canvass local restaurants to take the pledge to the Strawless Challenge. For one month, were asking local restaurants to not serve straws with their drinks. Please support the Strawless Challenge by requesting no straw when you go out to eat and by posting #VenturaStrawlessChallenge to your social media accounts. We want to use this opportunity to show how easy it is to bypass the straw. So please join us and ditch the straw!
There will be a short training for this event on Thursday June 7th at 6pm in the Surfrider office located at 872 E. Front St. Ventura 93001. Interested? Contact ofr@ventura.surfrider.org to sign up!
