Why you won't be getting a straw with your drink at these 50+ Hilton Head restaurants

A Bluffton woman is on a mission to make plastic straws go out of style in the Hilton Head area this summer.

From July to September, you won’t be getting a straw with your drink at more than 50 restaurants and bars around Hilton Head and Bluffton, thanks to the #StrawlessSummer campaign lead by Michelle Meissen and her organization Palmetto Ocean Conservancy.

While you can still get a straw if you ask, Meissen hopes the campaign will make them “uncool.”

“We live in a coastal city and our oceans need to be protected,” Meissen said on Instagram. “Let’s make smart choices this summer and year-round and stop sucking.”

Like plastic bags that Beaufort County voted to ban this year (effective this fall), straws are a single-use, nonrecyclable plastic. Their daily usage contributes to the massive amount of ocean pollution killing marine life.

Recycle machines physically can't break down straws because of their size. They “literally slip through the cracks,” according to Popular Science.

The campaign is a part of a national movement to reduce plastic-straw pollution across the United States. More than 200 restaurants in Charleston have pledged to go strawless this summer.

Plastic accounts for 90 percent of the pollution in the ocean, and straws are one of the most common plastic items found polluting the ocean, according to the Ocean Conservancy.

Hilton Head is no stranger to plastic-straw pollution.

Last year, Marci Tressel, a longtime resident of Sea Pines, told the Island Packet she picks up 10-45 plastic straws every morning on her beach walk.

Meissen said she sees a ton of plastic straws whenever she participates in beach cleanups, mostly around the Coligny area.

Palmetto Ocean Conservancy is giving those participating restaurants and bars, which Meissen calls “Guardians of the Ocean,” stickers displaying their dedication to kick plastic use to the curb. Soon, Hilton Head area restaurants will be able to pledge to go strawless on their website, Meissen said.

The conservancy has announced a list of participating restaurants on their Instagram that you can follow here.

"It's been growing like wildfire. I'm so excited," Meissen said. "It's been motivating to see these restaurants respond so positively to this."

Meissen doesn’t want the strawless summer to end, either.

"The goal is to make more people aware of how harmful plastics are and stop to think 'do you really need that straw?'" she said. "With pollution, we have to attack one problem at a time. We started with the plastic bags, and now it's time to move to straws."

If you can't kick the straw habit entirely, Meissen also is encouraging restaurants and locals to use alternative straws for slurping, such as paper, stainless steel and even edible straws.

Here is the list of restaurants who have pledged to go strawless this summer in Beaufort County (for an updated list click here):

This story was originally published June 28, 2018 at 7:33 AM.