No Plastic Straws

Austin-based Alamo Drafthouse joins avalanche against plastic straws

Rendering of Alamo Drafthouse in Little Elm

Alamo gets on board with the plastic straws ban.

Photo courtesy of Alamo Drafthouse DFW

The avalanche against plastic straws continues, this time via Texas' most famous movie house chain.

Alamo Drafthouse is changing its policy on plastic straws with two initiatives, according to a post on its website, as follows:

Straws by request only. Servers will no longer automatically bring straws for sodas, tea, or water. If you want to destroy the planet and still get one, you can mention to your server or note it on your order card.
Biodegradable straws. At roughly half of their 35 locations across the country, they're switching to a corn-based biodegradable straw by the end of July.

The blog post also directs readers to go to a write-up in the Hollywood Reporter for more information. Which is apparently a publication about movies and such.

A tangent here: Obviously, it is Alamo's choice where they want to hand off this plastic straws scoop. It's a little, shall we say, surprising that they would not choose CultureMap, which is not only Texas-based but also has a long and glorious history of reporting on plastic straw bans. Even the great Arizona-based Fox Restaurant Concepts announced their no-straws policy on CultureMap back in June, just sayin'.

The "roughly half" of their 35 locations that are embracing this new plastic straw policy are company-owned. The remaining locations are owned by franchisees.

Alamo is urging those franchisees to join the plastic straw initiative, and some have already agreed. Alamo is also preparing a white paper about its findings about straw use to distribution to franchise owners. Some might say that white paper is wasteful as well, though surely not as bad as plastic straws.

Alamo has already instituted the policy at its Denver location and seen impressive results, according to CEO Tim League. "Our Denver general manager first put the plan in place," League told the Reporter. "It cut straw usage significantly; it's about 75 percent down."

A note here: Unlike the Hollywood Reporter, which is indubitably a great place to break a scoop about straws, CultureMap would never put a semi-colon in the middle of a quote like that. It's kind of junky-looking, no?

League goes on to say that Alamo has an advantage over other theater chains on this initiative.

"A hurdle is that this has been a part of movie-going, but we are a little different," he says. "We don't have the super tanker sodas; we use more of a restaurant size, so it's a little easier."

Another semi-colon. Sigh.

sustainability

Self-driving Roller Coaster

More self-driving cars expected to roll out in Austin for 2025

Photo courtesy of Waymo via KVUE

Various brands offering self-driving cars are on-and-off in Austin.

Expect to see more self-driving rideshare vehicles, also known as robotaxis, on Austin roads next year.

Robotaxi company Waymo, which you may have already seen on Austin's roads, is partnering with Uber. At some point next year, customers will be able to use the Uber app to call a self-driving ride.

Austin-based company Avride is in the testing phase and plans to roll out its robotaxis next year.

Currently, Volkswagen ADMT and Amazon's Zoox are in the testing phase in Austin, while Hyundai's Motional is in the mapping phase.

Last year, robotaxi company Cruise paused operations in Austin after the California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the company's permits to operate driverless vehicles in the state. And last week, General Motors said it would no longer fund the company because of the time and resources needed.

This way of getting around has come with its safety concerns and issues. The city is tracking those concerns. According to the Transportation Department, the problems span from blocking the roads and parking in front of people's homes for weeks with lights beaming through their windows, to actual wrecks.

Since July 2023, robotaxis have been involved in 75 incidents. Only 21 of those incidents happened in 2024. It's important to note that Cruise has not been operating in Austin this year.

Since July 2023, driverless rideshare vehicles have been involved in 22 near collisions, eight collisions and seven instances where driverless taxis ignored directions from the Austin Police Department (APD).

According to the data, at least four of those Austin police incidents happened in recent months. The issues varied from driving through police checkpoints, to malfunctioning and getting stuck at an APD road closure near pedestrians, causing safety concerns.

A Waymo spokesperson said their vehicles have gesture recognition capabilities, which they've been training APD officers on using.

As the report shows, sometimes it does not work and Waymo said it is working to improve that. The spokesperson said that as of just last week, Waymo's First Responder Program has been independently verified by TÜV SÜD, making Waymo the first autonomous vehicle (AV) company to receive third-party validation for our emergency response protocols. They also said the data to date indicates the Waymo Driver is already reducing traffic injuries and fatalities in the places where the company currently operates.

Read the full story and watch the video at KVUE.com.

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