President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order aimed at encouraging the U.S. government and consumers to buy plastic drinking straws, pushing back efforts by his predecessor to phase out single-use plastics and tackle waste.

Trump signed an Executive Order to end the use of paper straws. Here’s what to know about the history of plastic straws.

President Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to return to using plastic straws. “We’re going back to plastic straws,” he said, adding that paper straws “don’t work.”

Or plastic bag, for that matter. Just months away from New Jersey reaching three years of banning single-use plastic bags in most stores and paper bags nearly everywhere, one state lawmaker is taking aim at the law.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday to review federal policies that restrict plastic straws.

Trump’s executive order claims that paper straws use chemicals that may carry risks to human health are more expensive to produce than plastic straws. Researchers from the University of Antwerp found forever chemicals known as PFAS to be present in paper, bamboo, glass and plastic straws, but not stainless steel ones, according to a 2023 study.

The announcement follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order, signed earlier last week, that reversed the Biden administration's initiative to eliminate single-use pla