The problem with plastic is that it is too useful and that's why getting rid of it is enviro-mental.

Cling wrap plastic can be stretched thinner than a politician's excuse to stop a fly getting into a potato salad. 

However, as body armour it can be padded thicker than a northern Irish accent to stop a bullet getting into a chest

So, admittedly, it can hang around past its use-by-date, like a former prime minister.

This is why NSW is banning all single-use plastics in November.

Which might have been OK if the replacements weren't, to put it in technical terms, complete rubbish.

They are even more rubbish than discarded plastic.

To get even more technical, the things they want us to use instead of plastic just plain suck.

Or as is the case with paper drinking straws they hardly suck at all.

It only takes a few sips for these straws to dissolve into sad saggy soggy clumps of mulch.

A replacement for something is normally expected to do the same job.

The job of a drinking straw is to transfer liquid though a thin, sturdy tube.

It's not to turn into pulp that looks like should be used as cheap filler in a wall cavity.

To consume any decent sized drink, or if you are fool-hardy enough to try a thickshake, you have to discard paper straws for fresh ones faster than Leo DiCaprio does Vogue models.  

This can't be good for the environment.

It's not, paper straws are thickly fibrous and not suited to recycle.

+

So, they are just as likely to become landfill as plastic.

Paper straws also taste bad, they are a bit like drinking through an anorexic cardboard toilet roll tube.

That’s not the only food-related plastic 'replacement' that tastes bad.

McDonald's and many other takeaway joints now issue wooden cutlery rather than plastic utensils.

Unlike straws, wooden cutlery performs the basic function of transporting food to your mouth.

The time to stop this madness is now.  

If we don't, plastic straws and cutlery are in danger of going the way of that most sadly missed wonder and glory of the modern age - the free plastic shopping bag.

Some may not even remember these translucent blessings, that were miraculously peeled off by by a cashier and given to you.

Given to you… as in for free, at no charge! As many as you needed!

No doubt their negligible cost was absorbed in the overall bill.

However, to receive something without having to dig deeper into your pockets, to get something just because you needed it, was a small act of generosity and grace in an otherwise pitiless world.