Starbucks will eliminate plastic straws for all its locations within 2 years. The company has become the largest food and beverage company to do so as calls to cut waste globally grow louder. 

By 2020 Starbucks will be using straws made from biodegradable materials like paper and specially designed lids.

The strawless lids will begin to appear in Vancouver this fall, with rollouts with the rest of Canada to follow next year and a global rollout soon after.

In Canada, Mcdonald's say they plan to monitor the market tests to understand the impact the changes may have before making a decision, while A&W says it will eliminate all plastic straws from its restaurants by the end of this year.

While plastic straws have become one of the more high profile issues enivornmentally, they make up only about 4% of the plastic trash by number of pieces, and far less by weight. Straws add up to about 2,000 tons of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that ends up in the water each year.