Straws are one of the most common litter on the beach. Could you sip your drink without one?

Before she goes out, Jana Hoefling makes sure to bring her pencil case.

It's not in case she spots a celebrity whose autograph she's after, or if she needs to write a quick note. But it's a convenient way to carry with her reusable straws. She has a stainless steel one, another made of glass, a straw meant for a milkshake and a few paper straws, too.

It doesn't end there. She packs a reusable utensil set, a stainless steel water bottle and tote bags for grocery shopping.

"It's just retraining," she said.

During Keep Manatee Beautiful's International Coastal Cleanup in October, an annual one-day event, 877 volunteers cleared more than 3,200 pounds of trash and 4,100 pounds of recyclables from 80 miles of shoreline in Manatee County.

From the beaches of Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island to the riparian habitats near Fort Hamer Boat Ramp and Wares Creek, more than 5,000 cigarette butts were plucked from the ground, avoiding an almost certain life of polluting Manatee's waterways. More than half of the cigarettes were found near Bridge Street on Anna Maria Island.

But plastic pollutants were picked up in large numbers, too; volunteers found 1,192 plastic bottle caps, 865 food wrappers, 665 plastic bottles and 467 straws and drink stirrers.

Hoefling is the co-founder of Rethinking Plastic Sarasota, a group formed last year that raises awareness about single-use plastic like straws and utensils. She said that on average, these single-use plastics are used for just 12 minutes before they're discarded.

Since the organization started its Skip The Straw Suncoast campaign in May, 28 restaurants from Anna Maria to Venice have either committed to or are in the process of changing up their operations. Similar campaigns, like No Straw St. Pete, have also formed in recent months to encourage similar behavior.

Eliza Ann's Coastal Kitchen in Holmes Beach is one of those restaurants. Noland Dunnan, the food and beverage manager for Waterline Marina Resort & Beach Club, said they and other restaurants owned by Mainsail Lodging and Development were thinking about their impact on the environment before the campaign approached them.

The restaurant only gives out straws to customers on request, but those straws are corn-based and biodegradable. Seven months after the restaurant opened, they still have the same boxes of eco-friendly straws.

"Most of them don't really mind, to be honest with you," Dunnan said.

Hoefling considers plastics as "one of those experiments that have gone horrible wrong." The miracle material is embedded in nearly every facet of our lives, but when not recycled — a possibility that's becoming more and more probable now that China is being more selective about the purity of the recyclables it imports — plastics break up into tiny bits of microplastics, or appear as food to wildlife.

"It never goes away," she said.

Albatross that forage in a gyre of marine debris in the Pacific Ocean eventually starve, their carcasses revealing a stomach full of plastic. A hard-to-watch video went viral in 2015 of researchers removing a straw from a sea turtle's nostril. A baby manatee named Emoji last year died after eating plastic bags.

On a less-than-ideal beach day last week on Anna Maria Island, Rachel Riley and six of her coworkers at Bradenton Insurance gathered not to kick back and relax, but to pick up garbage around Coquina Beach.

"It's important, but I also think it's fun," Riley said. "It's eye-opening."

The crew spent a few hours combing over sand dunes, picnic tables and the shoreline to make the beach cleaner than how they found it. Most of the trash she found was cigarette butts, but she was surprised to find a lot of plastic juice box straws and straw wrappers.

"Once you start walking around and you're focused, it's amazing how much trash you actually see," she said.

To Riley, there are two kinds of people: those who are conscious about picking up everything they bring with them, and those who don't care. Holidays, especially those spent on the beach like the Fourth of July, typically generate the most trash on Manatee beaches.

"There's no thought that goes into their waste and their trash," she said.

Hoefling doesn't think only beachgoers are to blame. She noted that recycling is important, but her organization wants to see people depend on plastics less, like the "bad five": polystyrene or plastic to-go containers; cups, lids and straws; plastic bottles; plastic bags; and plastic utensils. Trash meant for the garbage can may fall out onto the street, be pushed to storm drains and flow out into the waterways.

"It's not just one straw," Hoefling said. "It's all of us skipping the straw."

Which location had the most garbage during Keep Manatee Beautiful's International Coastal Cleanup in October 2017?

Longboat Key had the most: food wrappers, plastic bottle caps, lids, plastic bottles, glass bottles, cans, and plastic and foam plates and cups.

Bridge Street had the most: cigarette butts, plastic and foam take-out containers, metal bottle caps, straws, drink stirrers and utensils.

Wares Creek had the most plastic grocery bags.

Kingfish Boat Ramp had the most plastic bags other than grocery bags.

Palma Sola Causeway North had the most paper bags.

Palma Sola Causeway South had the most paper cups and plates.

This story was originally published July 6, 2018 at 5:00 AM.