Sugarbush Resort in Warren, Vermont no longer provides plastic drinking straws in the cafeterias and restaurants. Instead they have moved to more eco-friendly paper straws at the resort.
“We’re excited to be able to make this change,” said Gerry Nooney, Vice President of Culinary Operations at Sugarbush. “Ski resorts, as part of the outdoor industry, should always be looking for ways to make an environmental difference and this is an easy switch for us to make in our food and beverage venues.”
According to www.get-green-now.com, the United States uses 500 million plastic straws every day and plastic straws are now the 11th most found ocean trash. Sugarbush has continued to look for ways to reduce waste and increase its diversion rate over the past several years” – Sugarbush Resort Press Release
In addition,the restaurants on the hill are implementing a “straw by request” policy. Customer’s who want straws, must ask for one specifically. While this sounds like a good setup for a Seinfeld bit, we must applaud this move by Sugarbush. There is a patch of trash twice the size of the state of Texas floating around in the pacific ocean and anything we can do to reduce waste is important.
Thank you @IkonPass for an awesome takeover day! Only 114 days until Opening Day @Sugarbush_VT! pic.twitter.com/CRuePV32wP
— Ikon Pass (@IkonPass) July 27, 2018
This move by Sugarbush is part of a larger movement waged against plastic straws in Vermont.
“According to the group For a Strawless Ocean, nearly 500 million plastic straws are used in the United States every day, with many of those ending up in the ocean where they pollute the water and kill marine life. The group estimates that by the year 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
Unlike other plastics, straws cannot be recycled because they are too light to make it through the mechanical sorters, according to the organization.” – Vermont Digger
Find out more about the project here: Sugarbush Switches to Paper Straws in Restaurants, Lids in Cafeterias