Young Heart leads the straw debate for Cairns Regional Council

Floating plastic in the ocean (ShutterStock via Viswanathan, 2018)

It’s not every day a ten-year-old girl is invited to her local council and demands change. That is exactly what happened when Molly Steer presented her idea to the Cairns Regional Council ‘Planning & Environment Committee’ on the 11^th of April 2018 (Cairns Regional Council, 2018a, p.9).

Both representing herself and on behalf of marine biologist Nicole Nash, Molly aimed to persuade the Council to reduce the use of single-use plastics including straws within the region (Cairns Regional Council, 2018a, p.9; The Last Straw on the Great Barrier Reef, n.d.).

This wave of change started in February 2017 when nine-year-old Molly Steer saw the movie ‘A Plastic Ocean’, and instead of only acknowledging the impact of plastic pollution and especially straws on marine life including being eaten by turtles, Molly knew she needed to do something (strawnomore, 2018).

Straight away, she convinced her School Principal to remove plastic straws from the tuckshop and from there she created her campaign ‘StrawNoMore’ (Strawnomore, 2018). Throughout 2017, Molly’s campaign reached cafes in Cairns, more than 30 Great Barrier Reef tourism operators, more than 90 schools across Australia, people in New Zealand, South Korea and England; in addition to Molly presenting a TEDx talk in October 2017 and being given the 2018 Cairns Young Woman of the Year award (Briggs, 2018; Cairns Regional Council, 2018b; Strawnomore, 2018; TEDxtalks, 2019).

  Molly Steer campaigning for the removal of plastic straws with her campaign ‘Straw No More’ (Straw No More via Briggs, 2018)

The Committee Meeting

All of this success for Molly and her campaign led to CR James from the Cairns Regional Council inviting Molly to the ‘Planning & Environment Committee’ meeting on the 11^th of April 2018 (Cairns Regional Council, 2018a, p.9). It was the first step taken to bridge the gap between the community and the Council on the issue of reducing single-use-plastics from the region.  

The Committee took Molly’s presentation seriously and the proposal “Cairns City's Plan for the Reduction of single Use Plastics” was “carried unanimously” by all Committee members (Cairns Regional Council, 2018a, p.9).

This accepted notion includes creating goals to remove plastic straws and other single-use plastics from council operations including markets and functions, promoting the campaign with Molly and Nicole and encouraging local businesses to follow suit (Cairns Regional Council, 2018a, p.9).

With these aims now in place, Mayer Bob Manning stated

“We’ll be writing to our lessees, market stallholders and event partners to encourage them to reduce their use of single-use plastics and we’ll be looking at how we can assist this…”  (Cairns Regional Council, 2018b)

Action taken and spread

Vocal enthusiasm was backed up by the Council’s actions including the Council’s website encompassing a ‘plastic-free pledge' the 'plastic-free July challenge' and informative downloads on how to replace single-use plastic for cafés and mobile food vendor owners (Cairns Regional Council, 2018d). Furthermore, the Council created conditions for market stalls using single-use plastic, worked with packaging companies to increase the education of residents and revised the caterers and products used by the Council (Cairns Regional Council, 2018d).

Cairns Regional Council did not just accept this notion proposed by Molly but are continually acting on it and spreading the message alongside easy support from Moreton Bay Regional Council, Bundaberg Council, Brisbane Council, Ipswich Council, Toowoomba Council and Adelaide Council all committing to banning straws or other single-use plastic products from Council events or all together (Cairns Regional Council, 2018c, p.10).

Furthermore, the Queensland Minister for Environment Leeanne Enoch (shown in the image below) was encouraged by the council’s work and inspires other to do similar by saying that Cairns Regional Council was “setting a great example for the rest of Queensland” (Queensland Government; The Queensland Cabinet and Ministerial Directory, 2018). This inter-governmental praise by Enoch continues by her saying; it was a “…visionary decision and one I support wholeheartedly…” (Queensland Government; The Queensland Cabinet and Ministerial Directory, 2018).

With this support from the State Government, the council decided to spread the issue of straws and single-use plastics to the Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) via the annual conference over the 29^th to the 31^st of October 2018 (122ND LGAQ Annual Conference; Onwards Upwards, 2018, pp.1,69; Cairns Regional Council, 2018c, p.4). It was carried successfully by the LGAQ to “support Queensland local governments to commit to phase out plastic straws and other single use plastics from council operations and events” in addition to aiming to persuade the state government to create a state-wide program (122nd LGAQ Annual Conference; Final Outcomes, 2018, p.62). This state-wide program proposal was successful and therefore a ban on single-use plastics will be enforced at all Queensland council events in the future (Cairns Regional Council, 2018d).

In the middle, Queensland's Minister for Environment Leeanne Enoch showing how it is done with a paper straw (Alan Lander via Lander, 2018)

Are there always losers when the environment wins?

Despite success, there has been resistance regarding the need for plastic straws for the disabled. Micheala Hollywood, a disability rights advocate supports preserving the environment and personally experiences the need for plastic straws saying “Biodegradable plastic straws melt, and many of the other environmentally friendly straws don’t bend. There is no one-size-fits-all solution” (Faithfull, 2018). This is especially in response to coffee being served around 70-degrees-celcius which biodegradable straws cannot withstand (Faithfull, 2018).

Since Hollywood voicing her experience there has been no word from the Council, the State Government or Molly.

Therefore, the Cairns Regional Council and other Councils could help protect the environment and continue to meet the needs of their citizens by listening to those with disabilities. For those who need a plastic straw when other straws such as biodegradable ones are not appropriate, plastic straws should be available. In the risk of this happening when not appropriate, a disability card or alike could become mandatory to present.

Notwithstanding this issue; with the passion of Molly Steer and Nicole Nash leading the way, the Cairns Regional Council was able to ban single-use plastics including straws in 2018 and further convince other Councils and the Queensland State Government in doing the same thing for the future preservation of marine life.

Total words: 867

Reference List

122ND LGAQ Annual Conference; Onwards Upwards. (2018). In: 122ND LGAQ ANNUAL CONFERENCE. [online] Brisbane, QLD, Australia, pp.1,69. Available at: <https://www.lgaq.asn.au/documents/10136/9494782/2018%20122nd%20Annual%20Conference%20Proceedings%20%281%29.pdf>. [Accessed 23 Mar. 2019].

122nd LGAQ Annual Conference; Final Outcomes. (2018). In: 122nd LGAQ Annual Conference. [online] Brisbane, QLD, Australia, p.62. Available at: <https://www.lgaq.asn.au/documents/10136/9960c061-cdc5-46e2-871c-7695a3b38480>. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].

Briggs, C. (2018). 10yo wins battle to save the stomachs of turtles. [online] ABC News. Available at: <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-11/girl-wins-straw-phase-out-cairns-council-agree-ditch/9640522>. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].

Cairns Regional Council (2018a). CAIRNS REGIONAL COUNCIL MINUTES PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE 11 APRIL 2018. Cairns, QLD, Australia, p.9.

Cairns Regional Council (2018b). No more straws the goal for Council events, venues. [online] Available at: <https://www.cairns.qld.gov.au/council/news-publications/media-releases/releases/straws>. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].

Cairns Regional Council (2018c). ORDINARY MEETING 22 AUGUST 2018. Cairns, QLD, Australia, pp.4,10.

Cairns Regional Council. (2018d). Single-Use Plastics Reduction. [online] Available at: <https://www.cairns.qld.gov.au/community-environment/sustainability/council/practice/single-use-plastics>. [Accessed 23 Mar. 2019].

Faithfull, E. (2018). The problem with an outright ban on plastic straws. [online] ABC News. Available at: <https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-25/the-problem-with-banning-plastic-straws/9689346>. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].

Lander, A. (2018). Noosa Leading the way with plastic. [online] Noosa News. Available at:<https://www.noosanews.com.au/news/noosa-leading-the-way-on-plastic/3570645/>. [Accessed 31 Mar. 2019].

Queensland Government; The Queensland Cabinet and Ministerial Directory (2018). Palaszczuk Government praises Cairns Council for removing plastic straws. [online] Available at: <http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2018/4/13/palaszczuk-government-praises-cairns-council-for-removing-plastic-straws>. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].

Strawnomore. (2018). StrawNoMore | Home. [online] Available at: <https://www.strawnomore.org/>. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].

TEDxtalks (2019). Straw No More | Molly Steer | TEDxJCUCairns. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr5Py1r9xjw>. [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].

The Last Straw On the Great Barrier Reef. (n.d.). About. [online] Available at: <https://thelaststrawonthegbr.org/about/>. [Accessed 22 Mar. 2019].

Viswanathan, R. (2018). Why Starbucks, Disney, and the EU are all shunning plastic straws. [online] Vox. Available at: <https://www.vox.com/2018/6/25/17488336/plastic-straw-ban-ocean-pollution>. [Accessed 26 Mar. 2019].