Trump to reverse Biden’s plan to phase out plastic straws across US government | Donald Trump

Donald Trump has said that he will reverse Joe Biden’s plan to phase out plastic straws across the US government, complaining that paper alternatives don’t work and that a move is needed to go “BACK TO PLASTIC!”

Trump said in a Truth Social post that he will sign an executive order next week “ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!” The US president added in a separate post that Biden’s “mandate” for paper straws was now dead. “Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!”

Trump appears to be taking aim at an effort by the Biden administration plan, unveiled last year, to phase out all single-use plastics across the federal government by 2035. At the time, the White House said it was the first time it was “formally acknowledging the severity of the plastic pollution crisis and the scale of the response that will be required to effectively confront it”.

Biden’s attempt to reduce throwaway plastics, such as straws and sachets, from the US government, which is one of the world’s largest single consumers of goods, was aimed at tackling a growing tide of plastic pollution. Other countries have already put bans in place – the European Union has barred single-use plastic items such as plates, cutlery and straws, and will further extend this to plastic bags, toiletries and other items by 2030.

But Trump, such a fan of drinking Diet Coke that he has installed a button in the Oval Office in order to summon staff to deliver the drink, has long railed against any restrictions upon plastic straws.

When attempting to gain re-election in 2020, his campaign sold reusable straws on its website claiming that “liberal paper straws don’t work”. On his first day back as president after returning to the White House in January, Trump rescinded a Biden order to phase out single-use plastics on federal lands, including US national parks, by 2032.

The world is undergoing a glut of new plastic production and a summit between countries last year failed to come to a deal to address this despite growing recognition of the harm caused by waste that takes hundreds of years to break down. Global annual plastic production doubled in the two decades since 2000 to around 460m tonnes and is expected to quadruple again by 2050.

Less than 10% of this plastic waste is now being recycled. The rest invariably ends up in the environment, with the equivalent of one truck filled with plastic dumping its contents into the ocean every minute, according to experts’ estimates. Much of this trash is composed of single-use plastics, such as straws, which make up about 40% of plastic production.

The result of this boom has been a world riddled with plastics, with large or microscopic fragments of the material found in every corner of the planet, even in the air. Plastics choke and throttle marine creatures and birds and microplastics have been found deep within the bodies of animals, including humans. Research has found plastics present in people’s brains, testicles, blood and even placentas.

Plastics are a product of fossil fuels and an increase in production will also add to the planet-heating emissions that are causing the climate crisis. By the middle of the century, global emissions from plastic production could triple and account for one-fifth of the Earth’s remaining carbon budget, an analysis last year found.

Green groups said that Trump’s embrace of plastics will only worsen this environmental crisis. “Instead of doing what is necessary to protect Americans’ health, communities and coasts from pervasive plastic pollution, President Trump is announcing executive orders that are more about messaging than finding solutions,” said Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director at Oceana.

“President Trump should be making the US a global leader in addressing the plastics crisis at the source by reducing the production and use of single-use plastics and moving to reuse and refill systems.”