On July 9, Starbucks tweeted some huge news.

We’re removing plastic straws in our stores globally by 2020—reducing more than 1 billion plastic straws per year from our stores.

— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) July 9, 2018

The company’s decision to get rid of straws has caused quite an uproar in the Twittersphere.

Some agree with their decision, while some “prefer to keep the straws”; not believing the straw abandonment is necessarily helping the environment.

Christina Caron, a writer for the New York Times says, “Starbucks earned $22.4 billion in annual revenue last year, making it one of the largest businesses to announce it would eliminate plastic straws”.

Since Starbucks is huge business and corporation, it’s a big deal they’re eliminating plastic straws, because the plastic abandonment may influence other companies to “shed the straw” as well.

Against the new “sippy cup” lids, is a writer for Slate, Rachelle Hampton. Quoting Harvard trained dentist, Nisarg A. Patel, she says, that the tooth is “more exposed to acid and sugar [while using the ‘sippy cup] than using the straw”.

Although that may be the case, maybe we just need to choose the lesser of two evils. Do we want to harm the environment or our own teeth?

As a Starbucks enthusiast, I think that the decision to get rid of straws is a great one. Hopefully, their decision will start a movement where other companies “shed the straw” as well.