Straw Free MVWest Tisbury School

Straw Free MV

A group of 7th graders from the West Tisbury School who wanted to make a difference in their community.....

Straw Free MV Andrea, Ava, Violet, Rose, Dash, Morgan, Chris and Hunter

How can we make a difference?

There are a lot of restaurants on our island of Martha’s Vineyard. #

If they all stopped serving plastic straws we can have a positive impact on the environment and the Island.#

People (customers and workers) will be educated that plastic straws are dangerous.#

People may change their habits.

The problem with plasticIt does not biodegrade, it photo-degrades into smaller and smaller pieces, which get ingested by marine and land animals, and into our food chain. #

If it’s recycled, it is only a very small percentage. #

Essentially every piece of plastic ever made is still in our environment. (thelastplasticstraw.org) Athena Aicher from WHOI teaching us

about plastics in the Ocean!

Every day the USA uses 500,000,000 straws. That’s enough to fill up 46,400 large school buses each year. #

Straws can end up in a sea of floating plastics swept up into moving currents called gyres, also known as garbage patches. #44% of all seabirds, and 22% of all whales, porpoises and dolphins have ingested plastic. #Petroleum plastics are designed to last forever, which means animals can’t digest them and they will never decompose.#50-80% of customers chose to not take a straw when offered! (5gyres.org)

Steps:

Step 1: We identified a problem that we wanted to help solve.#We learned more about it: Athena Aicher from WHOI, 5 Gyres.org, etc. #Step 2: We targeted 30 MV restaurants#Step 3: We ordered sample paper straws from Aardvark.com#Step 4: One of our teacher aides at WTS, Anita Smith, drew a logo for us! Paper Straws from

Aardvark.com

Step 5:We wrote letters to all 30 restaurants explaining our project and asking for their support (we included a paper straw)#

In the letters we asked restaurants to #Stop ordering plastic straws and switch to paper straws OR#Have customers ask for a straw instead of placing straws automatically on the table AND#To display our sticker in a visible spot#

Step 6: We had the logo made into stickers and ordered 100#

Step 7: We made a facebook page!#

So far we have had 4 restaurants respond!

Straw Free MV writing letters to MV restaurants

RestaurantsEdgartown#

Chesca’s#

Right Fork Diner!

Alchemy#

Atria!

Square Rigger#

Seafood Shanty#

Lure Grill#

Sharky’s#

The Wharf#

The Newes#

Oak Bluffs#

Linda Jeans#

Slice of Life#

Lookout Tavern#

MV Chowder#

Nancy’s#

Sweet Life#

Giordanos#

Ocean View#

Sharky’s#

!

Vineyard Haven#

Rocco’s Pizza#

Black Dog#

Art Cliff#

Scottish Bakehouse#

The Net Result!

Nats Nook#

!!!!

Up-Island#

Aquinnah Shop#

Home Port#

The Galley#

State Rd.#

The Outermost Restaurant#

Orange Peel Bakery!

!!!Red = joined!

Our logo by Anita Smith

Next Steps....

Most of our letters came back to us because we didn’t have the correct mailing address.....so we will VISIT them in person with our letter and a sticker!#

We hope to not only get all island restaurants to stop using (or handing out) straws, but we hope to educate people about the dangers of plastic straws in our environment.

This was posted to our FB page by Atria: “Paper and bees wax straws arrived at Atria!"

Thanks for the inspiration.”