Blaze Pizza in Downtown Stores on Wednesday morning. Blaze is amongst many other food establishments that are discontinuing the use of plastic straws. (Julie Spillane/The Daily Campus)
Blaze Pizza in Storrs Center stopped providing plastic straws per their new corporate policy.
“Blaze as a corporation has stopped using them,” Matt Mills, the Blaze Storrs general manager said. “A lot of people were surprised but we’re taking it one step at a time.”
Drinks at Blaze now have sip lids, thus allowing the customer to drink without a straw, Mills said.
The pizza restaurant still has straws to give out if people ask for them or for customers with a disability, Mills said.
“If only one drink out of every 10 had a straw, that would be enough to save 30 pounds of plastic per year,” Mills said.
Mills said customers who ask for a straw will still receive one but employees will also inform them what the company is doing.
“We tell them we are working to help save the environment and the turtles,” Mills said.
Blaze is not alone in eliminating plastic straws. Starbucks began implementing sip lids onto their coffee cups in 2018 and announced they will phase out all plastic straws by 2020, according to their website (https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2018/starbucks-announces-environmental-milestone/).
Some states and cities have also begun to ban plastic straws, with Seattle being the first city to ban plastic straws in restaurants in July 2018.
Mills said eliminating plastic straws is Blaze’s way of eliminating plastic waste.
“We are trying to take one more step towards helping the environment,” Mills said.
Ashley Anglisano is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached by email at ashley.anglisano@uconn.edu.
