University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Goes Straw-Free, Kind Of

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse is removing plastic straws from campus dining locations.

UW-La Crosse Dining announced the change in a weekly newsletter to faculty and staff Monday.

Larry Ringgenberg, director of University Centers, said plastic straws will still be available by request, but he’s hoping students and staff can replace the single-use straws with reusable ones made from stainless steel or other materials.

“This fall, we will probably be handing out (reusable) straws as a free promotion,” Ringgenberg said. “We will start to make the straws available for purchase at some point. They’re not overly expensive, but if you try to provide a straw to 10,000 people, it becomes a little bit more of a daunting task.”

Ringgenberg said the idea came from the new leaders of the UW-La Crosse Student Association, who made a straw-free campus part of their campaign last spring.

UW-La Crosse joins a host of communities and businesses across the country that have chosen to remove or replace plastic straws, including the new Milwaukee Bucks arena.

People have voiced concerns about how the change will impact people with disabilities.

“Banning disposable, plastic straws completely would have a negative impact on people with disabilities who need them to drink,” said Michaela Gaffke from Aptiv, a nonprofit organization in La Crosse that provides services to people with mental and physical disabilities. “Other (straw) materials hold a choking hazard, injury risk, and are not safe for high temperatures. Also these materials are not positionable like the plastic straws.”

Gaffke said limiting the use of straws by people who don’t need them is a positive thing for the environment. But she said completely banning straws or not having them available would exclude people with disabilities who rely on them.

Other critics have called it an “eco fad” because the movement’s popularity on social media.

Ringgenberg said he’s heard some pushback on campus, especially because most of the university’s garbage is used at a local waste-to-energy plant operated by Xcel Energy.

“Knowing that maybe our straws are going to get burned and turned into energy, how much of an issue is it really? And various people say it’s not as much of an issue as people are making it out to be,” Ringgenberg said.

But he said UW-La Crosse still wants to help reduce the amount of single-use plastic on campus. The university will leave it up to the students to decide if they want to vote on a referendum completely banning straws from campus.

“When the students actually vote on it, I think that will be a really interesting reaction. We’ll find out what the college students of today really feel and if they think it’s a fad or if they think it’s a really good idea to do something with this,” Ringgenberg said.

Students could vote on the referendum as early as September.