The SNP MSP Kate Forbes has launched a Final Straw campaign, which has been backed by The Marine Conservation Society (MCS). 

And the MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch has warned plastic rubbish is “choking” the seas, damaging the environment and even risking marine wildlife. 

Plastic straws can take up to 500 years to decompose and according to Ms Forbes, around three billion of these could be thrown away every year across Scotland. 

Ms Forbes, 27, said: “I represent a constituency which stretches from the east to the west coasts and I can see the impact of plastics on our seas.

“Along our coastline, plastics are choking our seas, damaging the environment and risking the lives of seabirds and sea creatures.

“One of the most common plastic items on the beach are plastic straws.

“We could be throwing out just under three billion straws every year in Scotland, based on US estimates of people using an average of 1.6 straws per day every year.

“The pub chain Wetherspoons have indicated that they consume 70 million straws a year in the UK, and so the figures are huge.”

The MSP is hoping for a UK-wide ban as straws washed out to sea in the south of England could still end up on the Highland coastline. 

Ms Forbes has asked pub chains to stop handing out straws automatically and to provide biodegradable alternatives. 

The Scotland conservation officer for MCS, Catherine Gemmell said: “ A straw is only used for minutes yet will remain in the environment and our oceans for hundreds of years to come.

“This is why at MCS we are also calling on all the governments of the UK to put in place a levy on other single-use items such as cutlery and coffee cups to reduce the amount of plastic in use.”

After supermarkets began to charge customers for using plastic bags, 90 per cent of people now take their own bags with them when they are food shopping.