You may have noticed all the news articles about plastic straws lately. The small, seemingly harmless utensil that goes generally unnoticed in your everyday life has made it onto 2018’s most-wanted list.

If it’s surprising to hear that plastic straws are receiving backlash, it may be even more surprising to hear that, according to a 2017 study from researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, a whopping 91 percent of the plastic we use is not recycled and instead ends up in landfills or the ocean.