【明報專訊】"THE world is now struggling to recover from its plastic pollution hangover," said a writer from National Geographic. She was talking about something that many of us might have seen on television and in social media: the image of large amounts of plastic waste floating in the ocean and hitting the shores. Of the waste, the plastic straw has somehow become a global popular icon for a new environmental awareness since 2018. The same writer told us that a 2019 study estimated as many as 8.3 billion plastic straws pollute the world's beaches. However, she added that while 8 million tons of plastic was estimated to flow into the ocean every year, straws comprised only 0.025% of that. So why does reducing the use of, or even banning, plastic straws become such a hot focal point?