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CNN claims that Americans use 500 million straws per day.

Every day, Americans throw away 500 million plastic straws, enough to circle the Earth twice, or fill 125 school buses.

Other sources claim this too (ex1, ex2, ex3). Most seem to have a root source of a Ecocycle.org report:

Did you know that each day we use 500 million straws--enough disposable straws to fill over 46,400 large school buses per year?

However, another article points out that this report was done by a then 9 year old via a phone survey

Eco-Cycle is unable to provide any data to back up this number, telling Reason that it was relying on the research of one Milo Cress. Cress—whose Be Straw Free Campaign is hosted on Eco-Cycle's website—tells Reason that he arrived at the 500 million straws a day figure from phone surveys he conducted of straw manufacturers in 2011, when he was just 9 years old.

This hardly seems scientific or reliable. Are there any other more reputable sources that can confirm if Americans use 500 million straws per day?

David says Reinstate Monica
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    I wonder if the definition of straw includes hollow plastic coffee stirrers - that could easily account for a big chunk of it. – Mark Jan 28 '18 at 02:41
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    well, they definitely need some to build all those strawmen... – Federico Jan 29 '18 at 15:13
  • Eco-cycle's website implies that they have done their own surveying on this topic in the last few years, and are not relying solely on cold calls made by a 9 year old. Also, that number doesn't even include the plastic straws that come with things, like juice boxes. – WakeDemons3 Jan 29 '18 at 20:38
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    @WakeDemons3 interesting. That data points section was not there a few days ago. – David says Reinstate Monica Jan 29 '18 at 20:43
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    @WakeDemons3 Milo the 9 year old is still the principle investigator for Eco-cycle's website about straw usage. Milo is a few years older now, but Eco-cycle describes his continued activities as the lead surveyor of straw usage here http://www.ecocycle.org/bestrawfree/about – Ellie Kesselman Jan 30 '18 at 13:24
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    As some other comments pointed out, as well as articles (https://www.rd.com/culture/why-are-straws-bad/ , https://www.healthiguide.com/lifestyle/why-plastic-straws-are-bad/ , http://www.delish.com/food-news/a48991/why-you-should-never-drink-from-plastic-straws/ ...), that claim was made by "BeStrawFree". "The number of disposable straws distributed for use in the US are based on estimates provided by straw manufacturers we researched for this project." (from http://www.ecocycle.org/bestrawfree/faqs) Considering we lack of details of the protocol, I suggest we rate this claim "uncertain". – Samuel Churlaud Jan 31 '18 at 04:42
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    And I also suggest we don't call this a "study" (as some articles did), because it was not published in a peer-reviewed journal and we don't have access to the protocol and data. – Samuel Churlaud Jan 31 '18 at 04:45
  • I feel like the only real way to answer this question is to repeat the study based on what we know of its methodology - try to obtain manufacturing numbers from all the straw manufacturers. – Riking Jan 31 '18 at 09:20
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    The US population [is about 320M](https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest.html). This would mean every man, woman, and child would have to discard ~1.6 straws per day; or that half the population uses more than 3 per day. I suspect data padding/manipulation going on. – JYelton Feb 02 '18 at 18:45
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    If Cress was 9 in 2011, he's only - tops - 16 now. This data may be correct - but relying on a gradeschooler's random calls is pretty shoddy work. However, this *one* plant in FL produces ~10 straws per second out of one machine: https://youtu.be/niM6A44maZk. That comes out to ~315,360,000 per year (if it runs 24x7) per machine. And they're a small manufacturer (and this is only "standard" straws, not flexible, printed, long, etc). – warren Mar 14 '18 at 16:28
  • It's certainly the right order of magnitude. How precise do you expect the number to be, especially given that there's likely a significant seasonal variation? – Daniel R Hicks Aug 16 '18 at 11:57

2 Answers2

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We have this from 2010:

https://www.manufacturing.net/news/2010/12/va-plant-produces-4b-drinking-straws-annually

(Facts as of print time for the article.) There's a plant in VA that produces annually about 4 billion of the little plastic bendy straws that come with juice boxes. It has more than 80% of the US market for bendy straws, and also exports to a number of other (smaller) countries. This is the sort of source that's highly likely to be both accurate and non-falsified, or at least not heavily falsified. It's a bit of a puff piece, so they may have tweaked the numbers a bit to make people feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it's not being driven by the sort of political agenda that's prone to occasional wild inaccuracies. The numbers coming out of it are pretty fuzzy, in both directions, but they're also interesting.

Note: this is currently a partial answer. It covered more ground previously, but we determined that one of the sources was not reliable, and that portion was removed.

Ben Barden
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  • The 80% is only of the small straws that come with prepackaged beverage cartoons, like juices boxes. Also the article says "The **company** supplies the straws that are sold with those cartons, and it has more than 80 percent of the market share in the U.S.". The one plant produces 4 billion straws, but the whole company supplied 80% of the cartoons in the US. "Tetra Pak produces more than 141 billion packages [a year as of 2008]" https://www.tetrapak.com/about/history – DavePhD Jul 19 '18 at 12:06
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According to The Green Book (2007):

Each year, Americans throw away 138 billion straws and stirrers

So, if coffee stirrers are included, that is 378 million per day.

A 29 May 1924 Pulp and Paper Magazine of Canada article says:

No other country, it is stated, can compete with the United States in the manufacture of artificial straws, and no other country uses so many. The United States taught the foreigners the use of them and today the market is world-wide. The total annual production of drinking straws is said to be about four billion. The increased demand for the straws is ascribed to the spread of the so-called "Yankee mania for sanitation," which has resulted in a remarkable decrease in epidemic diseases.

A 1949 Steel Facts article says:

10 billion drinking straws are made in this country each year

DavePhD
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    Looks like The Green Book is copyright 2007, and may be a touch out of date. Beyond that, though, do we have any particular reason to believe that it itself is accurate? – Ben Barden Jan 30 '18 at 18:18
  • @BenBarden the OP claim is from 2011, which is only 4 years later. – DavePhD Jan 30 '18 at 18:20
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    I'm certainly willing to believe that it's *more* accurate than extrapolations off of a six-year-old phone survey done by a 9-year-old. I'm just noting the potential limitations on accuracy for these numbers, and asking if what we know of its reliability (if anything). – Ben Barden Jan 30 '18 at 18:28
  • Coffee stirrers are quite different, as they are generally made from wood rather than plastic as straws are. – Acccumulation Jan 31 '18 at 20:10
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    Does the Green Book cite it's sources? Why should I trust it? – BobTheAverage Feb 01 '18 at 19:14
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    @BobTheAverage No. I don't trust it particularly, and neither should you. – DavePhD Feb 01 '18 at 19:20
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    @DavePhD When you cite a half trustworthy source, shouldn't your answer explain that? – BobTheAverage Feb 02 '18 at 00:55
  • I don't see the relevance of production numbers unless we also know the portion exported to foreign markets. The 500M/day figure in the OP claim is for the United States, therefore the exported quantity must be known in order to determine how many are kept in domestic markets. – JYelton Feb 02 '18 at 18:57
  • @Acccumulation - most coffee stirrers here in the US that I've seen are like the plastic little juice box straws and not the wood stick type. – Hannover Fist Feb 02 '18 at 21:14