They may protect your teeth (and your lipstick), but plastic straws are bad news for the planet.

As campaigners try to turn the tide on single-use plastics, pub giant Wetherspoons' vow to ditch the drinking straw is expected to stop 70 million of them ending up in landfill or the sea every year.

A heartbreaking video by the Leatherback Trust, showing a research team in Costa Rica attempting to remove a 10cm plastic straw from the nose of a sea turtle, has been watched more than 9million times.

Says the trust: "Every plastic straw, plastic bag, or plastic bottle that ends up in the oceans could mean the difference between life or death for any number of marine animals."

Wetherspoons will stop the using plastic straws across its 900 pubs in the UK and Republic of Ireland by the end of this year.

In addition, and with immediate effect, straws will no longer be automatically added to drinks, although they remain available for customers if requested.

From January 2018, all of the company’s pubs will use biodegradable paper straws.

MORE: Wetherspoons has put an end to the pain of queueing at the bar to order drinks

Wetherspoons chief executive John Hutson said: “These changes are part of an overall commitment from the company to reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste produced.

“We believe that Wetherspoon pub-goers will welcome this.”