Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas moving to paper straws

These new environmentally initiative are, um, papering the scene in Las Vegas.

Hard Rock Hotel is the latest Vegas resort to switch from plastic to paper in their preferred tubular drinking implements. Hard Rock Hotel partner and property CEO Richard “Boz” Bosworth confirmed initial reports from online publication EnvironmentalLeader.com that HRH was using paper.

“Disposable plastic is a serious problem in our environment, Bosworth said in a text message. “This is the first step for the Hard Rock Hotel and future Virgin Hotels Las Vegas to reduce our plastic pollution and its impact on our carbon footprint.”

The Hard Rock began their initiative in January. Several resorts, including those operated by MGM Resorts International, have phased in the paper-straw campaign.

According to industry statistics, Americans use more than 500 million plastic straws each day. Those discarded straws pollute oceans and ingested by marine life, including turtles and sea birds. Plastic-straw bans are plastic straw bans are already in place in such California cities as Alameda, Berkeley, Carmel, Davis, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Oakland and San Luis Obispo. Seattle and Edmonds, Wash.; Vancouver, Canada and New York City and Washington, D.C. are all plastic-straw free.

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His PodKats podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.