It’s not just the weight either, straws are pretty light, so I think in the case of 200 metric tons, look at that in terms of the volume instead. Nobody sees a bunch of plastic bags strewn about on the streets and thinks “oh, no worries, it’s only about 20 grams of waste”.
And that 200 tons was what was collected from that floating ocean dump. If you go by single use plastic sales, it’s about 2339 tons in 2019.
https://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2...ml#tableb1-fna