To help fight the war on waste, the Sydney Opera House and Solotel Group’s Sydney Opera Bar has committed to ditching single-use plastic straws, saving 1.1 million straws each year.
All of the Opera House’s onsite restaurants will be plastic straw free by August 1, 2018, with straws only made available on request to patrons who specifically require them. The move is estimated to save more than two million straws each year across the precinct.
These iconic Sydney venues join the International Convention Centre and Museum of Contemporary Art who have also committed to ditching single-use plastic straws.
“There are few places in the world better to have a drink than at Opera Bar, over-looking Sydney Harbour – it’s iconic and quintessentially Australian. When Opera Bar goes completely straw free next week, we will be saving 1.3 million straws from appearing in landfill per year. Other Solotel venues will be straw-free by 1 August and we’re encouraging all Sydney venues to do the same, says Co-Owner of Solotel, Matt Moran.
Emma Bombonato, Sydney Opera House Environmental Sustainability Manager says the Opera House is one of the only World Heritage buildings to achieve green certification internationally.
“As a symbol of modern Australia, we feel it’s our responsibility to lead by example and encourage all of Sydney to support Sydney Doesn’t Suck,’” Emma says. “We’re passionate about building sustainable thinking into everything we do, from eradicating straws or plastic bags onsite and streamlining waste collection onsite to the programming on our stages.”
Complementary to the work that the City of Sydney is doing to reduce waste and energy in the accommodation and hospitality sectors, Deputy Lord Mayor Jess Miller says leading venues are already coming up with a range of ways to avoid using single-use plastic straws and address waste among their operations.
“Sydney Doesn’t Suck is an umbrella campaign that brings all of this great work together and makes it easier for punters to identify and support venues and bars that are making the effort, as well as encourage and support venues to look for better options,” Jess says.
Patrons are encouraged to search social media for the #SydneyDoesntSuck hashtag to see which venues are participating.
Venues keen to go straw-free and reduce their waste are encouraged to check thelaststraw.com.au to find out how and list their venue.
According to this week’s episode of ABC’s War on Waste, 10 million straws are used by Australians each day, and 3.6 billion straws used annually.
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Starbucks to eliminate plastic straws by 2020
Takeaway coffee cups may be banned by 2023
The Coffee Club and Starbucks to discount reusable coffee cups