7A – Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1
1) The opportunity I would like to pursue would be the city of Gainesville switches to banning plastic straws.
2) The Who: People living within Gainesville and cities with similar bans.
The What: Plastic straws being banned with no good replacement options being offered.
The Why: Regulation changes due to environmental concerns. Only solution offered is paper straws, which disintegrate during use.
3) Testing the who: I feel that everyone in my current who shares this problem. For some things such as sodas people don’t mind using no straws, but for things such as milkshakes, something needs to be invented to solve this issue.
Testing the what: All things that use plastic straws are included in this. This includes restaurants, fast food places, food trucks, or anyplace selling drinks with straws.
Testing the why: The why is for environmental concerns, so people with these concerns might support banning plastic straws. I feel there needs to be a better solution to this to reduce the waste of plastic so that environmentalists’ needs will be met, but also solves the issue of paper straws being impractical.
4) The first person I interviewed was my friend Noah. He told me that he is tired of paper straws constantly ruining his drinks. He said the middle keeps falling apart and he has to go through a bunch of them, which is defeating the purpose of them. He said he feels everyone is affected and he definitely agrees that there is a need for a better alternative. The second person I interviewed was my friend Marin. She said that she just doesn’t use straws, so she does not really care. I asked what about for things such as milk shakes and she agreed that plastic straws should be allowed for things like that. She said she has a lot of friends use stainless steel straws, but they don’t always have them with them when the need it. The third person I interviewed was my friend Kevin. He said he doesn’t really care about the environment that much and that he wants plastic straws back. He said he said if there was something besides paper straws that “just don’t work” he wouldn’t mind switching. I asked him about the suggestion Marin made about using stainless steel straws, and he said he wouldn’t mind them but might get annoyed having to clean them. The fourth person I interviewed was my mom. She said she is not affected by this ban living in Clearwater, but when she goes out to eat in St. Pete which has similar regulations that she notices it. She said that she doesn’t mind using the paper, but said if she had a choice, she would definitely choose the plastic straw. She did agree with my point about milkshakes and thinks an exception should be made, or a better solution to be found. She did ask me if paper straws are better for the environment, and I found mixed results in looking this up. I did find it can take more energy making paper straws, so its unclear how much these offsets the benefit of them. The final person I interviewed was my friend Andie. He told me he rarely eats out to save money so the paper straws have little effect on him, but did not that when he does eat out he is tired of them breaking, He said they only have one job, and it is to get the drink from the cup to his mouth, and they even fail at this.
5) During these interviews I realized how many people agree with me that this is a problem. I was nervous that I was overreacting, and no one would feel as annoyed as I am, but it was interesting to see how many people agreed that there needs to be a better solution.
2) The Who: People living within Gainesville and cities with similar bans.
The What: Plastic straws being banned with no good replacement options being offered.
The Why: Regulation changes due to environmental concerns. Only solution offered is paper straws, which disintegrate during use.
3) Testing the who: I feel that everyone in my current who shares this problem. For some things such as sodas people don’t mind using no straws, but for things such as milkshakes, something needs to be invented to solve this issue.
Testing the what: All things that use plastic straws are included in this. This includes restaurants, fast food places, food trucks, or anyplace selling drinks with straws.
Testing the why: The why is for environmental concerns, so people with these concerns might support banning plastic straws. I feel there needs to be a better solution to this to reduce the waste of plastic so that environmentalists’ needs will be met, but also solves the issue of paper straws being impractical.
4) The first person I interviewed was my friend Noah. He told me that he is tired of paper straws constantly ruining his drinks. He said the middle keeps falling apart and he has to go through a bunch of them, which is defeating the purpose of them. He said he feels everyone is affected and he definitely agrees that there is a need for a better alternative. The second person I interviewed was my friend Marin. She said that she just doesn’t use straws, so she does not really care. I asked what about for things such as milk shakes and she agreed that plastic straws should be allowed for things like that. She said she has a lot of friends use stainless steel straws, but they don’t always have them with them when the need it. The third person I interviewed was my friend Kevin. He said he doesn’t really care about the environment that much and that he wants plastic straws back. He said he said if there was something besides paper straws that “just don’t work” he wouldn’t mind switching. I asked him about the suggestion Marin made about using stainless steel straws, and he said he wouldn’t mind them but might get annoyed having to clean them. The fourth person I interviewed was my mom. She said she is not affected by this ban living in Clearwater, but when she goes out to eat in St. Pete which has similar regulations that she notices it. She said that she doesn’t mind using the paper, but said if she had a choice, she would definitely choose the plastic straw. She did agree with my point about milkshakes and thinks an exception should be made, or a better solution to be found. She did ask me if paper straws are better for the environment, and I found mixed results in looking this up. I did find it can take more energy making paper straws, so its unclear how much these offsets the benefit of them. The final person I interviewed was my friend Andie. He told me he rarely eats out to save money so the paper straws have little effect on him, but did not that when he does eat out he is tired of them breaking, He said they only have one job, and it is to get the drink from the cup to his mouth, and they even fail at this.
5) During these interviews I realized how many people agree with me that this is a problem. I was nervous that I was overreacting, and no one would feel as annoyed as I am, but it was interesting to see how many people agreed that there needs to be a better solution.
Dear Matthew,
ReplyDeleteI think to pursue the opportunity of the city of Gainesville switches to banning plastic straws is interesting. I agree that plastic straws being banned with no good replacement options being offered is a problem that many people are being faced within Gainesville. I think there is a lot of opportunity in creating a product that is enjoyed by consumers but also environmentally friendly.
Hey Matthew!
ReplyDeleteI think that it was a great choice to choose this opportunity. Keeping things local at first is a great start to entrepreneurial ideas. I like how you can personally relate to this problem (as can I) as it can help motivate you to come up with a solution and actually make it happen. I see all the time on facebook that people are so over paper straws. And then I see places like smoothie king who have compostable plastic-feeling straws- so I know the opportunity is out there! Nice job.