Wildlife Conservation Society, NY Aquarium stand behind Mayor de Blasio in straw ban

In Mayor Bill de Blasio's State of the City speech last week, the subject of banning plastic straws in the city was once again brought up.
The straw ban is an initiative being met with praise by the Wildlife Conservation Society.
The Wildlife Conservation Society is the organization behind parks like the Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium and for the past year they've been motivated to get plastic straws out of the city.
Wildlife Conservation Society and the NY Aquarium launched the "Give a Sip" campaign aimed at doing just that.
In less than a year, over 175 organizations have joined the campaign.
In his State of the City, Mayor de Blasio said in part, "And now Styrofoam is banned in New York City and let's ban plastic bags and plastic straws while we're at it."
The New York Aquarium says that while one straw might not seem that detrimental, millions of tons of plastic end up in the oceans each year, ending up in the bodies on 71 percent of sea birds and 30 percent of sea turtles.
Now the Wildlife Conservation Society is working on a bill with the New York City Council to tackle plastic straws.
"There's incredibly sad stories about, for example, there was a pilot whale that had 18 tons of plastic in its gut; what we're doing is we're destroying the food chain from the very bottom and at the end of the day, it's just not good for us and it's not good for the sea lions," says John Calelli, of the Wildlife Conservation Society.