Dear members: “Straw ban” stigma and response

Dear members,

Thank you so much for sharing your concerns with us and responding to our posts about the proposed “straw ban” in the city of Vancouver and making this one of our most engaging stories.

Stigma and strategy

The “ban” (part of the City of Vancouver’s Single-Use Item Reduction Strategy) is not scheduled to come into effect until June 2019, but it has captured so much public attention that many restaurants and small businesses have already started phasing out straws all over the province. Many people believe it is already in effect.

Some preliminary consultation has been done with disability-representing agencies. However, more needs to happen. In August, the Cerebral Palsy Association of BC met with the City of Vancouver and articulated the concerns of ourselves and our members. We are currently the only organization to have requested a face-to-face meeting with the City on this issue and brought forward the concerns of our members.

Recommendations

The city has acknowledged the concerns of our community and that public education has not kept up with the general impression of the so-called “ban”. With this in mind, we have requested:

• provisions for straws to be offered or made available on request for those who require them, with restaurant education and monitoring for compliance.
• public education strategy to mitigate confusion and stigmatization and increase understanding, so that individuals don’t have to explain themselves
• to include CPABC pro-actively in the policy consultation in November and December, and conduct increased outreach to the disability community

Please share and comment

 Please read and share our article here and share your comments with us. If you would like to share your questions or concerns about the ban directly with the Reduce Single-Use Team, email: ReduceSingleUse@vancouver.ca