All hail Hollywood for leading the way once again in making life so much sweeter than any of us actually deserve.
This time, however, it's not through the usual expertly crafted documentary or crowd-pleasing rom-com featurette. No, this time, it's through an all too new but totally environmentally friendly manner that has got the whole world already singing its praises.
Meet Alamo Drafthouse theater chains, a Texan movie house king who, as of last week, has taken strong measures to rid all of its United States locations of plastic straws, "leading other U.S. theater chains by doing so in the wake a growing groundswell to ban the drinking aid," as The Hollywood Reporter puts it.
So from now on, don't expect to be sipping up that soda pop with plastic anytime soon -- at least in Austin and San Antonio, Texas areas as well as other locations across the country such as in Kansas City, Raleigh, North Carolina, San Francisco, and the Big Apple.
All of Alamo's company-owned locations nationwide will be switching out to more eco-approved straws by the end of the month, replacing the long-popular drink utensil with corn-based, biodegradable versions instead.
Along with plans to prepare “a white paper about its findings about straw use to distribute to franchise owners,” the mega-movie house’s newest initiative will also be combined with another program already being followed across the chain where straws and other such items are available only by customer request.
"Our Denver general manager first put the plan in place. It cut straw usage significantly; it's about 75 percent down," company CEO Tim League tells THR. "This makes sense. It's the right thing to do for the environment.”
Right thing indeed, which is probably why Alamo’s latest policy seems to be following along in an ongoing nationwide trend of doing the environment some good.
The move comes just after Starbucks vowed recently to rid all plastic straws from its stores nationwide by 2020 by opting instead for “adult sippy cup” style lids instead. American Airlines has done the same in past weeks while Seattle became the first major United States city to go about banning the use of single-use plastic straws and utensils in food service just last month – all in a widespread effort to cut down on waste and prevent marine plastic pollution, as The Associated Press reports.
Similar legislations are also set to soon be proposed in other major hotspots such as Los Angeles and New York City, which just so happen to be the two largest moviegoing markets in the country.
"A lot of us already wanted to do this, we just had to kind of find the feasible ways to kind of just jump on board and make it happen,” Morgan Hendrix, the creative manager of Alamo Drafthouse, added in an interview with KXAN.
The official announcement was made on the Alamo Drafthouse website recently, using a photo caption that basically sums up to the tee exactly how the chain feels about all of it and exactly how “all the pieces kind of [just] fell into place rather quickly":
"Straws suck."
Yes, all agreed. Straws do suck, and we’re all on board the bandwagon to eliminate the plastic suckers once and for all.