Thread by @ai_valentin

For every abled telling disabled folks to just get our own reusable straws that bend and clean them, I present to you one of the greatest child killers of the 19th c: the rubber feeding tube. This is where single-use straws came from, in part. #StrawBan
nourishingdeath.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/mur…

Sterilising bendable plastic is exceptionally hard, and requires boiling and never getting any tears, scratches, or other surface damage to the straw where bacteria can lurk and turn deadly.

That's asking a lot to end 0.003% of plastic pollution. Get it right or die.

And if those reusable straws get any surface damage? They require basically being autoclaved. Special equipment, expensive equipment, for the people most likely to be below the poverty line, just so we can drink safely? THAT is your exchange?

Restaurants are not equipped to make the sanitation necessary to hand out reusable straws safely. For fuck's sake, look at food poisoning outbreaks from restaurants and ask why disabled people should trust them to handle speciality straws better than meat and produce.

For abled people, foregoing a straw or using a paper one or getting a reusable one is a matter of inconvenience.

For many disabled people, we're talking potentially deadly complications.

Why is our death acceptable so you feel good about a plastic ban that doesn't hurt you?

That is ableism 101.

Not listening to disabled people's needs. Not caring about how your political decisions hurt us. Not caring what the consequences are for disabled people. Accepting our harm without qualm.

We are less important than that sea turtle in a viral video.