The Kid Behind ‘500 Million Plastic Straws’ a Day

Shelburne, Vt., resident Milo Cress was just 8 years old when he began thinking about disposable plastic straw use. Now, 17-year-old Cress is the person behind the popular statistic that 500 million plastic straws are used in the U.S. every day.

Cress took it upon himself to research the issue, which is how he came up with the 500 million straw estimate. And at age 9, he even reached out to straw manufacturers to establish his informal estimate of daily use.

However, Cress does understand that his estimate is open to criticism, though, he said, no one has come back to him with a better number.

Plastics News has more:

Milo Cress doesn’t want to ban plastic straws, but he does want people to think about whether they really need to use them.

The 17-year-old Shelburne, Vt., resident is the person behind the much-referenced statistic that 500 million plastic straws are used in the United States every day.

And, as founder of the Be Straw Free campaign, he really thinks most people can usually do without them.

Cress was just 8 years old when he started thinking about disposable plastic straw use. He took it upon himself to research the issue to come up with his 500-million-straw estimate.

Read the full article here.