A Conservative Member of Parliament from southwestern Ontario says she's done with Tim Hortons until they put plastic lids back on their coffee.Lianne Rood, MP for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex announced her one-woman boycott in a video posted to Twitter ("X") on Thursday. .“Tim’s used to be for the little guy who wanted a quick coffee and a bite. Now they’re making pizzas and crappy paper lids," she posted."I’m done with Tim Hortons until they stop trying to push these woke paper lids that dissolve in your mouth.”The MP also commented on her post, “Yet another example of the failed NDP-Liberal plastics ban that will do nothing to help the environment.”The politician included a 30-second video post in front of a Tim Horton's location, saying."Well, Canada, this is the last straw, I mean lid. Really, Tim Hortons? Paper lids that disintegrate your mouth? Come on. It's just another example of something trying to help the environment but it's actually going to have the opposite effect."If we have a plastic lid, at least it's recyclable, but this disintegrating in your mouth as you're trying to drink your coffee? No thanks. I don't know about you, but until Tim Hortons gets rid of this paper lid, I'm done with Tim Hortons."The video has been viewed more than 1.4 million times and received a wide variety of responses. One person on X noted that Rood’s issue could be solved by bringing a reusable coffee cup to the restaurant. This would also earn her a ten-cent rebate on each coffee.Rood isn’t the only one to take issue with Tim’s beverage containers, as shown by the post below..Preferences aside, a European study published last August said both plastic and paper materials often include chemicals that have health risks, while the alleged environmentally-friendly status of paper was not entirely deserved."Many food contact materials (FCMs) and reusable plastics in the food industry contain poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a group of synthetic pollutants that are known to be potentially harmful for wildlife, humans, and the environment. PFAS may migrate from FCMs to food consumed by humans. As a replacement for plastics, often paper and other plant-based materials are used in commercial settings," the researchers explained.The study examined 39 straws made paper, bamboo, glass, stainless steel, and plastic, and found only stainless steel straws were free of PFAS."PFAS were more frequently detected in plant-based materials, such as paper and bamboo. We did not observe many differences between the types of materials, or the continents of origin. The presence of PFAS in plant-based straws shows that they are not necessarily biodegradable and that the use of such straws potentially contributes to human and environmental exposure of PFAS," the paper's abstract concluded.
