MOULTRIE, Ga. — To see the headlines, one would think war has been declared against the drinking straw.

Efforts to ban the common beverage accessory picked up steam in 2011 when a 9-year-old Vermont boy named Milo Cress, participating in an anti-waste campaign, did some research and discovered that more than 500 million straws were used every day.

Market research firms discovered his research was overstated by a bit, but their figures came in between 170 million and 390 million straws per day, which is still a  lot.

Fast forward to 2018: Cities such as Seattle, Miami Beach and Fort Myers, the states of Hawaii and California, and even some whole countries are working to ban plastic straws. Scotland plans to be rid of plastic straws by 2019, and Taiwan is banning single-use plastic items, including straws, cups and shopping bags, by 2030.

Major companies such as Disney, Starbucks, McDonald’s and most recently The Seminole Tribe of Florida are all in the process of phasing out plastic straws.

Do not expect the City of Moultrie to follow suit, according to City Manager Pete Dillard.

“No, we as a city will not participate in that unless the State of Georgia mandates it and makes us,” Dillard said. “We need a bit more analysis before we jump and do anything. People forget that we switched from paper bags to plastic bags, and if that wouldn’t have happened we would be in a far better position in my opinion. So as of now, I don’t see it coming to the               area.”

Why is such a small thing is causing such a huge issue anyway? The answer is the damage it does to the ocean: A report by the World Economic Forum projects that by the year 2050, the plastic in the oceans will outweigh the fish.