Here’s why your drink won’t come with a plastic straw at these Hilton Head restaurants

Marci Tressel, a longtime resident of Sea Pines, gets up every morning to walk her dog at sunrise.

Like clockwork, she begins her walk at the Sea Pines Beach Club and makes her way down to the water’s edge. But instead of staring at the open landscape in front of her, Tressel keeps her head down, searching.

For what?

Plastic straws.

“They go into the ground, fill with sand and they’re almost invisible,” Tressel said. “It’s an environmental disaster.”

Tressel picks up anywhere from 10 to 45 straws a day just on her walk from the beach club to the water and back, she said.

“If you’re looking at the sand, you can’t help but notice them,” she said. “In that area coming and going, it’s just incredible and eye-opening the amount you can find.

“And that’s just at one resort on one island.”

Straws are among the most common plastic debris volunteers clean from beaches, along with bags, cups and bottles.

Americans use an estimated half a billion straws every day, according to the National Park Service. And with a small gust of wind or knocking over of a cup, plastic straws can easily get swept up from beachfront bars, garbage cans and the sand, soon making their way into oceans and waterways, where animals often mistake them for food.

Like plastic bags, the straws eventually are broken down and become “microplastics,” tiny bits of plastic that collect in the ocean and are digested by marine life.

In order to limit the amount of straws that wind up in the environment, individuals like Tressel and restaurants in coastal communities across the nation are making it their mission to decrease the amount of pollution caused by plastic straws.

In the Charleston area, more than 70 bars and restaurants recently joined a #strawlesssummer initiative. The initiative, which was launched on June 20, is designed to encourage participation in a concerted, two-month effort to reduce the use of plastic straws.

On Hilton Head Island and Bluffton, a couple restaurants have also started a straw-free campaign, as a part of their own mission to reduce plastic.

Local Pie and Fish Seafood and Raw Bar, which are both owned by the same restaurant group, stopped putting straws in customers drinks about a month ago.

“We’re trying to cut down our plastic usage and since straws are so prevalent, it seemed like a logical place to start,” said Jack McNulty, general manager at Local Pie.

McNulty said that if people still request a straw, the restaurants will provide customers with one. But for those circumstances, the restaurants are in the process of switching from straws made of plastic to those made of a biodegradable material.

As for reactions from customers, most are supportive of the initiative and think its a great idea, he said.

“As community members, it’s our job to protect what we have here,” McNulty said. “And if we want to keep up as one of the top tourist destinations in the country, we need to continue to do so.”

Tressel, who is also a volunteer with the Birds of Prey Center near Charleston, said the last three out of five birds she’s rescued have been affected by plastic pollution, including a blue heron with a plastic bag wrapped around its beak.

She too believes tourists would rather deal with plastic straw and bag bans instead of seeing a bird with a plastic bag around its beak or a sea turtle with a straw stuck up its nose.

“I think they’d love to see us eliminate bags and straws and be more environmental,” she said. “... It’s our obligation.”

Tressel started noticing the straws on the beach last year. But after seeing more and more, she started picking them up and collecting them.

Armed with a bucket full of 12 days’ worth of straws, separated into different rubber bands for each days collection, Tressel attends city council and commission meetings, as well as Sea Pines meetings, trying to inform the public of the problem.

“Unfortunately, the attitude down here is that people don’t want to do anything to upset the tourists,” Tressel said. “But I think it’s quite the contrary. They want to help, they want us to be more environmental.”

This story was originally published July 7, 2017 at 1:31 PM with the headline "Here’s why your drink won’t come with a plastic straw at these Hilton Head restaurants."