Alex Norris triggered laughter from TV host Wilfred Frost after being asked about Donald Trump signing an executive order to scrap efforts to replace plastic straws with paper ones
Alex Norris asked about Donald Trump’s plastic straw policy
A Labour MP sparked laughter in the Sky News studio after mockingly batting away questions on Donald Trump’s war against paper straws.
Junior housing minister Alex Norris triggered laughter from TV host Wilfred Frost after revealing how he tests paper straws out by the quality with which he can get to the end of a chocolate McDonald’s milkshake. It comes after the US president yesterday signed an executive order to scrap efforts in America to replace plastic straws with paper ones.
Mr Trump said paper straws “don’t work” and “disgustingly” dissolve in people’s mouths. It is a stark reversal from Joe Biden’s push to clampdown on the “crisis” of plastic pollution plaguing the world.
Asked for his view on plastic straws, Mr Norris said: “I have to say I don’t have a hugely strong view. I live everybody want to try to get single-use plastic out of my personal behaviour so I avoid them where I can.” Pressed on Mr Trump’s that the paper ones are “not a great replacement”, he added: “They’re getting better in my experience. It’s whether they can do a McDonald’s milkshake to the bottom is always my test. They can now.”
Frost burst out laughing before adding: “That can take quite a long time to get through as well.” Mr Norris hit back jokingly: “Not the way I do it if I’m honest” and added that he’d choose “chocolate always”.
As Mr Trump signed an order banning the government from using paper straws, he said the use of them was a “ridiculous situation. We’re going back to plastic straws”. He also said he thinks marine life will be just fine continuing to eat plastic. “I don’t think that plastic is going to affect the shark very much as they’re eating, as they’re munching their way through the ocean,” the President of the United Sates said.
Several US states and cities have banned plastic straws, and some restaurants no longer automatically give them to customers. Yet the environment is littered with these straws and other single-use plastic food and beverage containers — water bottles, takeout containers, coffee lids, shopping bags and more.
In October 2020, it became illegal for businesses in the UK to supply plastic straws, drinks stirrers and plastic-stemmed cotton buds to customers. Prior to that, it was estimated 4.7 billion plastic straws were used – and discarded – in England every year.
But Mr Trump’s move away from this vision has been blasted by critics. Christy Leavitt, plastics campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, said: “President Trump is moving in the wrong direction on single-use plastics. The world is facing a plastic pollution crisis, and we can no longer ignore one of the biggest environmental threats facing our oceans and our planet today.”