It's estimated that each day in the U.S., humans use over 500,000,000 straws. Ocean Conservancy’s 2014 list ranked plastic straws as the number five most popular found item behind bottle caps, wrappers, and cigarette butts on beaches. Plastic straws aren't recycled, so they wind up in landfills, litter streets and add to the tons of plastic debris in oceans.
With colorful straw history animation and segments narrated by Oscar winner Tim Robbins, STRAWS (30 minutes) aims to entertain and inspire action by showing how individuals, groups and business owners around the globe are reducing plastic straw use through awareness, outreach, policy and non-plastic alternatives. Director Linda Booker interviews Jackie Nunez, founder of The Last Plastic Straw, restaurant owners with "Straws by Request Only" policies, Dr. Wallace J. Nichols - renown marine biologist and author, researcher Dr. Jenna Jambeck and Drifters Project artist Pam Longobardi.
In Costa Rica, STRAWS filmed turtle researchers Nathan Robinson of the Leatherback Trust and Christine Figgener, PhD student, Texas A&M University, who rescued and filmed a sea turtle with a straw in it's nose. That story inspired 11-year old Max Machum to start his own no straws challenge for Costa Rican businesses. Max and other kids around the world are now leading the charge to create a sea of change, one plastic straw at a time.
