BREAKING: Trump says 'we're going back to plastic', reverses Biden's push for paper straws, they 'don't work'

President Donald Trump officially signed an executive order on Monday to reverse President Joe Biden's order to institute paper straws across the country. "We're going back to plastic straws," Trump said. "These things don't work. I've had them many times. And on occassion they break, they explode, if something's hot they don't last very long, like a matter of minutes, a matter of seconds. We're going back to plastic straws. I think it's okay."
 

"And I don't think that plastic's going to effect a shark as they're munching their way through the ocean," he said.

Trump announced via a Truth Social post on Friday morning that he would be reversing President Joe Biden's push for paper straw, saying they "don't work." This will one of hundreds of executive orders Trump has signed since taking office that reverse executive orders signed by Biden during his term in office.

"I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!" Trump said.

The order from Biden on Mobilizing Federal Action on Plastic Pollution: Progress, Principles, and Priorities, was an attempt to take on the "climate crisis," and was implemented in July 2024. It required a "all-hands-on-deck response" from every federal agency in government. 

"The President is committed to taking ambitious actions… to end plastic pollution and is calling upon the global community to do the same, with the goal to reduce the global production and consumption of virgin plastics," the White House said at the time. 

The order required federal agencies to stop buying plastic straws and to start buying paper ones. As anyone who has used a paper straw can tell you, they start to disintegrate in liquid and become useless well before a beverage has been depleted.

The White House under Biden said that "plastic and polystyrene food and beverage containers, bottles, straws, cups, cutlery and disposable plastic bags" would be phased out under the plan. This followed an executive order that restricted use of plastic straws and single-use plastics on government or public land. Many Republicans at the time called the action absurd.

The reasoning of the Biden administration was that plastic items "are the most common type of marine debris found in the ocean, waterways, and Great Lakes." 

"From consumer items like straws and disposable utensils, to bait bags, escape vents, and ropes used in fisheries, much of the marine debris addressed by the work of the NOAA Marine Debris Program (MDP) and its partners is plastic," Biden's report read. There were also concerns raised by USAID about the "19,600 metric tons of plastic and other low-value
waste from disposal through direct technical assistance to over 25 cities and nearly 40
locally-led grants."

But for Trump, the key metric is that paper straws are simply not a effective means of conveyance for a beverage to a person's mouth. Trump is a Diet Coke devotee and has a button in his office that can be used to bring him the preferred soft drink whenever he wishes.