A national distaste for plastic straws arose in June of 2018 due to National Geographic’s declaration of the dangerous repercussions of straws on the environment. The Seattle-based coffee chain reacted to this outrage by following their hometown’s ban on straws.

Starbucks officially announced their decision to ban straws July 9, switching to strawless “nitro” lids that are already available in more than 8,000 locations. But many consumers noticed the lids frustratingly contain more plastic, creating more waste than the straws.

In a statement, Starbucks stressed “the strawless lid is made from polypropylene, a commonly-accepted recyclable plastic that can be captured in recycling infrastructure,” compared to straws that are too small to be recycled at all. Despite that fact, only 9% of the world’s plastic is actually recycled according to National Geographic. Therefore it is naive to assume these new lids would stay out of landfills completely.

There is no way to ensure all recyclables are actually recycled, so it is questionable the new lids are actually creating less waste than straws. In order for Starbucks’ decision to truly be environmentally advantageous, there would have to be a large reform in the world’s recycling system.

Additionally, straws only make up roughly 4% of the plastic trash by number of pieces, with lids and cups being much more present in the ocean, according to The Guardian. This goes to show that Starbucks’ circulation of lids with more plastic will in reality add more waste into the waters.

While no one can argue that limiting unnecessary and useless straws is a good decision, the way in which Starbucks enacted their ban has faults that may cause more harm on the environment than intended. It is disappointing that this large company would simply follow a trend of banning straws without thinking through their action. In order for the business to actually improve the environment, Starbucks would need their new lids to contain less plastic, otherwise their ban on straws is pointless.