This semester, Mr. Valor’s Period 2 APES class at Diamond Bar High School has committed to Project Ex-STRAW-dinary− a semester long class project dedicated to removing and replacing plastic straws on campus and in local restaurants.

Every day, Americans use over 500 million straws, which inevitably ends up in our world’s oceans. Plastic straws can take up to 200 years to decompose, and cause serious risks to our marine life. An estimated 71% of seabirds and 30% of sea turtles found have been found with plastic in their stomachs. Unfortunately for marine life that has come into contact with human waste, there is a 50% mortality rate for those that ingest plastic.

Project Ex-STRAW-dinary is working to reduce the waste that ends up in the oceans− one straw at a time. Diamond Bar High School alone uses a thousand straws per month serving students during lunch. By banning plastic straws, lives are saved, and marine waste is decreased significantly.

The members of Mr. Valor’s class are taking this a step further and reaching out to local restaurants in the Diamond Bar area. Our goal is to get restaurants to take the step to reduce the use plastic straws by having them pledge to adopt a "straw-upon-request" policy, and connect them to biodegradable straw providers at an affordable price.