Plastic Straws Banned in Santa Barbara (Origins Update)

In light of the moonbat jihad against drinking straws (see herehere, and here) having reached the point that providing customers with straws is now punishable with jail time in Santa Barbara, see if you can guess whether this is a legitimate story or fake news from the Babylon Bee…. (MOONBATTERY)

MOONBATTERY has more on the origin of this “500-million” number:

You may have heard that Starbucks — ever at the vanguard of moonbattery — has proclaimed that it will eliminate all single-use plastic straws by 2020. You may also have heard that the lids it will use that allow drinking without a straw require more plastic than if they just stuck with the straws. You may be aware that the liberal jihad against plastic straws is reaching critical mass:

In July, Seattle imposed America’s first ban on plastic straws. Vancouver, British Columbia, passed a similar ban a few months earlier. There are active attempts to prohibit straws in New York CityWashington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco. A-list celebrities from Calvin Harris to Tom Brady have lectured us on giving up straws. Both National Geographic and The Atlantic have run long profiles on the history and environmental effects of the straw. Vice is now treating their consumption as a dirty, hedonistic excess.

But did you know that the anti-straw jihad is the brainchild of a little kid?

It began with a 9-year-old boy named Milo Cress and his 2011 campaign, “Be Straw Free,” which launched to raise awareness about plastic waste.

His big finding? Americans use more than 500 million drinking straws daily, enough to fill 125 school buses. That figure has become highly touted since, referenced in straw ban coverage from The New York Times and National Geographic to reports from the National Park Service (and USA TODAY).

Young Milo came up with the outlandishly improbable 500 million straws per day stat himself. Adult moonbats ran with it…..