‘MPSGA’ doesn’t make the slickest acronym to plaster on hats and shirts. But Donald Trump doesn’t care. Declaring war on paper straws and bringing back plastic has suddenly become a high-priority for the Fast Food-loving US President…
Late last week, Trump posted prominently on his social media accounts: “I will be signing an Exec-utive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!”
Emblematic
Fast Food beverage straws become emblematic of the Biden Administration’s drive to eliminate all single-use plastic items from the Fast Food ‘system’.
The Biden plan called for total elimination of single use ‘disposable’ plastic packaging and utensils by 2035.
Biden admin outlawed plastic
In 2024, the Biden administration published an 83-page report titled Mobilizing Federal Action on Plastic Pollution: Progress, Principles, and Priorities, confirming what environmental activists has been saying for ages: that, “plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing and consequential environmental problems in the U.S. and around the globe.
(The report has since been deleted from US federal government websites by the Trump adminis-tration. But it can still be accessed via the private archive website Way Back Machine.)
More than just a personal gripe…
Everybody knows Trump loves fast Food, and hates paper straws. He’s ranted that they soften when moistened, and bend and just ‘don’t work’ after a while.
But there may well be more to his move to ‘bring back plastic’.
The recently returned President promised during his election campaign to dismantle the climate policies of the previous administration after receiving more than $14 million in donations from the oil and gas industry in his 2024 campaign. If you missed it, feel no shame that you may not have been paying adequate attention. His slogan for that campaign platform plank, ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’, over-shadowed a lot of other campaign chatter at the time.
My take
More than one observer has noted that Trump’s pledge to ‘bring back plastic’ doesn’t exactly tie in with his administration’s high-profile promise to Make America Healthy Again.
And as of this writing, Trump’s controversial Health Czar, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has not commented on his boss’s declaration concerning plastic straws…
~ Maggie J.