West El Paso restaurant says ‘Skip The Straws’

A west El Paso restaurant started implementing a practice to reduce plastic pollution on our planet.

In the Pacific Ocean alone, almost 80,000 tons of plastic is floating in a mass that is near twice the size of Texas.

One of the biggest contributors to the so-called floating island of garbage: plastic straws.

An environmental issue that Eloise General Manager and Executive Chef Jose Cazares said prompted him switch to paper straws.

“For us, a lot of people say ‘Why make the change?’ But it’s becoming the new standard,” said Cazares.

The switch to paper straws ends up costing the restaurant a penny extra per straw, but Cazares said the increase is worth it.

“A lot of marine life is affected in general, and that affects the ecosystem,” said Cazares.

In the United States, more than 500,000,000 plastic straws are used daily, according to the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

“There’s a good chance that the fish we might be consuming has micro bits of straw and plastic that we might consume,” said Cazares.