Emirates helps industry edge towards the last straw

The aviation industry is edging closer to the last straw with Dubai-based giant Emirates becoming the latest airline to phase out the environmentally unfriendly drink accessory. Emirates, one of the world’s biggest international airlines, introduced paper straws on June 1 and says all its flights will soon be plastic straw- free. Also on the way out are plastic swizzle sticks and stirrers — all of them will be replaced by year’s end — plastic bags used for inflight retail purchases will be replaced with paper bags August. READ: Industry heavyweights join forces on climate change in aviation's "third era". Emirates estimates the initiatives together will remove 81.7 million single-use plastic items from landfill a year. On the suggestion of cabin crew, the airline is also segregating large plastic bottles for recycling in Dubai and other parts of the world. “This diverts an estimated 3 tonnes or about 150,000 plastic bottles from landfill in Dubai each month,’’ it said. “A full review of the plastics on board has been conducted and over the next few months, the airline will gradually implement other initiatives to tackle plastic waste” Initiatives already in place include ecoTHREAD economy class blankets that are each made from 28 recycled plastic bottles and will have saved 88 million bottles from landfill by the end of this year. Airlines around the world have been ditching plastic straws, which have become ubiquitous, are difficult to recycle and are a threat to oceans. Strawlessocean.org estimates that a failure to act now will mean there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050. It points to research by Australia’s CSIRO that shows 71 percent of seabirds and 30 percent of turtles have been found with plastics in their stomach. Plastic straws are also among the top 10 items found during beach clean-ups.