Trump signs executive order to stop gov't from buying paper straws

Feb. 10 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday directing the federal government, the largest purchaser of goods and services in the country, to stop purchasing paper straws.

Trump signed the executive order among a slew of others Monday in the Oval Office.

"We're going back to plastic straws. These things don't work. I've had them many times and on occasion, they break, they explode; if somethings hot, they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes, sometimes a matter of seconds -- it's a ridiculous situation," Trump said, as members of his staff chuckled. "We're going back to plastic straws."

The order directs heads of executive departments and agencies to take action to eliminate the procurement of paper straws while ordering the assistant to the president for domestic police to issue a national strategy to end the use of papers straws within 45 days.

Under the Biden administration, the federal government moved to remove plastic straws under a 2022 Department of Interior order seeking to phase out single-use placed products on public lands by 2032. Other single-use products affected by the order were polystyrene food and beverage containers, bottles, cups. cutlery and bags.

In July, Biden signed an executive order to phase out federal procurement of single-use plastics by 2027 and from all federal operations by 2035.

According to a Biden White House report, single-use plastic items represent 40% of the global plastic market. Plastic items, such as straws, according to the report, are the most common type of marine debris found in the ocean, waterways and the Great Lakes.

Environmentalists, including the Sierra Club, have endorsed ditching plastic straws, as some 500 million of them are used each day in the United States and add to plastic pollution.

Trump dismissed environmental concerns posed by straws during the press conference Monday, saying: "I don't think that plastic is going to affect a shark very much as they're eating, as they're munching their way through the ocean."

The announcement comes days after Trump on Friday said he would reverse Biden's initiative to phase out plastic straws.

"'NO PLASTIC STRAWS, ONLY PAPER,' is dead," Trump had said on his Truth Social platform. "Enjoy your next drink without a straw that disgustingly dissolves in your mouth!!!"