Suck It Up: Brisbane's Crowbar Wants You To Say No To Plastic Straws

Renowned Queensland heavy-tunes venue Crowbar is well loved for its willingness to shirk the status quo, and it's not a philosophy solely limited to the musical acts they host. 

If you need a point of demonstration, look no further than the fact that Crowbar's management advised last night that the venue's staff, being "conscious of the environmental impact", will no longer be voluntarily giving its punters plastic straws with their drinks. Instead, patrons will be required to request them.

"Plastic straws are just one of many examples of over-consumption that we have become accustomed to in our daily lives," the venue explained on Facebook.

"With each person's help, we can change the course of plastic pollution. Thank you for understanding."

According to venue manager Tyla Dombroski, the mastermind of the initiative, the decision to pull back on plastic use was the result of her increasing personal awareness at the grave and wide-reaching impacts the material — and wider human consumption — has had on the global environment.

"We went to Hong Kong about a month ago, and I just realised the gravity of consumption around the world, I think, and I felt really overwhelmed by it," Dombroski told The Music. "And then it was maybe like six months ago, I watched a video of some people trying to take a straw out of a turtle's nose, and they didn't really know what it was at first and then they got it out and it was, like, deeply wedged inside its brain.

"It just completely turned me off straws and made me think about why we actually need them. So I thought we'd take them out for a month and see people's reactions and how we could manage that, I guess."

In actuality, the venue has been quietly restraining its straw service for a while now, but they're making it official from here as the first step in what Dombroski hopes will be a multi-faceted environmental push.

"It's something that we've been conscious of and monitoring in bars for a while," she says. "We have strainers in the sinks that will catch all the straws from cups, and our staff are 100% for it, so we haven't been automatically putting straws in drinks for a few months now, and sometimes people will ask, 'Ah, where's my straw?' and I'll just point to where we used to keep them — because I know I don't want people's hands touching the straw that's about to go into my mouth — but I guess it's just the first stage of making a conscious effort to cut down our footprint on the environment, by only offering them when people ask."

One commenter on the venue's post was quick to point out that options such as biodegradable straws are an option, rather than eradicating straws as a standard entirely — the venue thanked them and assured they are "fully aware of these options" — while the issue of Crowbar's use of plastic cups was also raised, though organisers explained there are more complexities and mitigating circumstances surrounding the continued use of those receptacles.

"We're taking steps where we can for now, but we also prefer to provide a safe environment and unfortunately can't trust everyone with glass or support the costs of increasing our supply of polycarbonate cups at this stage," they explained.

According to Dombroski, the venue is presently investigating prices for biodegradable options with its suppliers, but its intent goes beyond those measures.

"The next stage that we would be wanting to do in the next few weeks is if we can work with a suitable organisation that focuses on marine or wildlife conservation, where we could implement like a donation-for-a-straw policy," she said. "So, even though we're already cutting back our usage, we can also be giving back, for when people do want a straw, and hopefully it makes more people think about their use of plastic in everyday life."

Despite the occasional grumbler — or, more likely, simply confused and slightly sauced patron — asking about their missing straws, Dombroski says the community reaction to the initiative has been consistently positive and encouraging. 

"Everyone's reaction's been amazing and super-supportive, which we're stoked about," Dombroski said. "There'll be more areas that we'll look at in the next few months, to see where we can cut back, and help, but there's also venue policies in place for patron safety, so we have no glass in the basement venue. We try to use polycarbonate cups down there but, sometimes, if it's busy, we'll go to plastics, so that will kind of be the next thing that we'll be looking to cut down or replace, I guess."

Dombroski admits that those safety considerations actually make the drive to completely eradicate plastic from their venue a slightly more difficult one to overcome than they'd like but, by the same token, it would hardly be fair of anyone to expect the space to overhaul every aspect of its operation overnight.

"I guess that's why we're starting with the straws now — that's the main thing that we worry about, because they're so small and they can get through the drains and into the oceans and the gutters and everywhere," Dombroski concludes. "But there's the polycarbonate cups, which we try to use, and then plastics or disposables are our last choice. There's options like paper cups, so I guess that's the next step we'll be looking at.

"By all means, we're not a completely green and environmental venue, but if we can look at where we can cut back and help the environment, and hopefully encourage other people to do similar things, that's all we want to do."

Crowbar's policy on plastic-straw supply will be effective immediately; A Breach Of Silence play the venue tonight, with I Exist stopping by tomorrow. See theGuide for more details.