x.com/Legal_Fil/status/2101681111914975529

The post misstates both the age/grade of the child involved and the nature of the project.

Credible sources tracing the origin of the widely cited straw statistic say it came from Milo Cress's “Be Straw Free” project, which he started in February 2011 when he was nine years old. Eco-Cycle, which hosts the campaign site, says Cress “was nine when he started this project” and explains that he contacted U.S. straw manufacturers to estimate straw usage, then launched the Be Straw Free campaign project.

An NPR report likewise says the estimate originated when Cress was “a curious fourth grader” who had started “an environmental project” to discourage restaurants from automatically providing straws. A fourth grader / 9-year-old is not a middle-school student, and these sources describe the effort as an environmental/campaign project rather than a science-fair project.

So while people sometimes credit Cress's childhood project with helping popularize concern about plastic straws, calling it “a middle school science fair project” is factually inaccurate.