Yakult S’pore to Stop Providing Straws from 2019 & Netizens Pointed at the Bottles Instead

The ubiquity of straws accompanying bottled/packet drinks is very much an acknowledged fact of life.

Try to imagine your Yeo’s chrysanthemum or Pokka green tea without straws this CNY.

Hard right? What are you supposed to do?

Snip the Tetra Pack’s triangle-edged fold that will almost certainly result in guaranteed spillage?

Use any available (and hygienic) sharp object around you to poke through the inviting metal foil?

I admit though; this kind of thinking requires a Copernican shift in attitude and thinking.

And that’s what Yakult just did.

Yakult or Vitagen; The perennial fight for the champion of  Lactobacillus

Plastic Waste

According to this Straits Times article,  Singaporeans go through a whopping  “1.76 billion plastic items a year – or almost one plastic item per person per day” with only 20% of those plastic items being recycled.

This according to the results of a six-month Singapore Environment Council (SEC) announced on 31 July 2018.

Dancing to the global tune of this burgeoning environmentally-friendly soundtrack, Yakult announced last Thursday that they would be removing straws from Yakult and Yakult Ace Light products come end-December 2018.

You can find the Facebook post here:

As part of the announcement, Yakult posted a succinct 55-second video and shared that:

“Yakult can be consumed directly from the bottle by removing the foil cap.”

Who would’ve known?!

Reactions

Like a through and through millennial-writer, a scour through the treasure-trove of comments and reactions is needed to ensure that this article is rightly-structured and comprehensive.

Like our multi-cultured society, the comments are of course, well-varied.

Boasting 166 comments, 364 reactions and 362 shares; some of the aptly categorical ones are:

The Supportive

The Middlegrounds

Personally my favourite bunch of comments; acknowledging the environmentally-beneficial move but also pointing out that the bottles and wraps are made from plastics.

Which would remind you of a Nas Daily video:

And moving on…

The Ones with Toddler Issues

And some brilliant ‘Schooling’ comments in return:

Okay, you get my point, right?

PSA: Think twice before posting anything to social media.

And incidentally, since we are on the topic of ‘Schooling,’ it seems interesting to note that in a video uploaded on Yakult’s YouTube page on September 5 2018, Joseph Schooling and a few others drink Yakult directly from the bottles by lifting the lid.

No straws were seen if you didn’t get my drift.

 

The Ones that I just don’t get

Granted, they are somewhat similar to ‘The Middlegrounds’ in that they point out the plastic usage when it comes to the bottle/wrappings.

However, what I don’t get is the slight whiff of sarcasm for some (if one has legitimate points, why not use constructive ways to share?), as well as the notion that changes need to be entirely drastic and that progressive changes count for nothing.

It’s like saying: “Because I don’t earn enough money, I’ll not earn at all and stay home since earning some/little equates no nothing.”

Or, “Trying to cut down on cigarettes don’t matter, because it’s not the 3 sticks that I reduce by since I still smoke the other 7.”

#Logic#Justsaying

And if I haven’t said my piece:

Good starting move Yakult! Looking forward to more measures in time to come.