4 ms·

It'll stab you in the throat. A real concern for children, and undoubtedly also for some disabled folk: https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2016/starbucks-to-recall-s

It'll stab you in the throat. A real concern for children, and undoubtedly also for some disabled folk: https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2016/starbucks-to-recall-stainless-steel-beverage-straws-to-provide-new-warnings https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2016/starbucks-to-recall-stainl... Just use biodegradable plastic straws.

ccozan 7y ago
IKEA sells in Germany straws from paper. Kids love them. Very light.
- amyjess 7y ago
  ...and they'll also get soggy and dissolve in your drinks.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    I actually have a 3D printed PLA straw (nominally compostable) that I reuse (single layer so it can be cleaned/dried). Weird, not super feasible for most people, but I needed a straw and didn't have one.
  - remir 7y ago
    I tried paper straws a couple of times at A&W and it wasn't that bad. Granted, it was a cold drink, which could perhaps be problematic with hot drinks, but beside a texture difference, I found the paper straw to be an acceptable replacement.
    - alacombe 7y ago
      They were probably coated with wax, which make them... non-recyclable.
      - ccozan 7y ago
        Sure, they will be dirty with whatever you drink too. But they are bio-degradable, compared to plastic.
      - jogjayr 7y ago
        Wax-coated paper is probably far safer to dispose by burning than plastic.
      - remir 7y ago
        I'm pretty sure platic straws are not being recycled. Paper straws are at least more sustainable.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    They just need more wax then. Cups made from paper work perfectly well; so should straws.
    - hedora 7y ago
      The cups are typically coated in plastic, last time I checked. (This is not obvious from looking at them though).
      - darkpuma 7y ago
        I can't say I'm a cup expert, but I'm quite sure that paper cups (or straws) can be made waterproof if impregnated with wax.
        ccozan 7y ago
        You don't need to make them waterproof. How long do you plan to drink a soda or whatever else? My kids are done in max 10mins and they look mostly untouched. I left it for one hour in a hot cocoa though, and it was not intact anymore but still usable to a degree.
        darkpuma 7y ago
        Let's say somebody gets served their beverage when they sit down, then neglect it until after they're doing eating. In a cold beverage, I'd want a straw to last at least an hour. I don't think that should be hard to accomplish either.
amyjess 7y ago
Biodegradable plastic has its own issues as well. Nearly all of them are food-based and will set off one food allergy or another, plus you may also have issues with straws dissolving in hot liquids. Someone elsewhere in the thread mentioned straws made of lobster shells. In addition to shellfish allergies, such a straw isn't going to be suitable for anyone who's vegan, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't kosher either (TBH, I'm Jewish, but I don't keep kosher, and I don't know enough about the laws of kashrut to say whether or not drinking out of a lobster-shell straw is equivalent to eating lobster).
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  Hard to drink hot liquids with a straw anyway (stirrers are another story). The plastics I'm think of are PLA and PHA. Mainly made of corn, but you could synthesize them from pure chemicals as well. Far more common than these "lobster shell" ones.
  - amyjess 7y ago
    Honestly, even in cold liquids, I'd be worried about non-plastic straws getting soggy and/or melting if left long enough. I haven't specifically looked into PLA and PHA much, but a quick google sees PLA being referred to as "too good to be true" and having "misleading biodegradability". I'm not seeing such concerns about PHA, but I've also only spent like a minute looking it up, and I wouldn't be surprised if some more intensive searching turns up some serious drawbacks. I have turned up some concerns about bioplastic production competing with food for the same agricultural resources, though.
    - Robotbeat 7y ago
      PLA really needs an industrial composter to break down fully, but this is still better than traditional plastics. It's just polymerized lactic acid, which is common and naturally occuring in the human body. PHA generally breaks down faster in the natural environment (i.e. it's biodegradable, not just compostable) and it has similar properties to PLA. Straws use an absolutely minimal amount of material. I really don't think concern over agricultural resources is valid for such uses as it is compared to, say, the massive amounts used for biofuels. And of course, it's not as if metals have no resource requirements, either. A typical straw weighs about .42 grams and thus uses about as much agricultural material as two kernels of corn (about as many calories as two tic tacs). That's not the problem, here. To put that in perspective, the energy in that straw (about 0.005 kilowatt-hours) is less than we just wasted arguing about it online.

ccozan 7y ago

IKEA sells in Germany straws from paper. Kids love them. Very light.

amyjess 7y ago
...and they'll also get soggy and dissolve in your drinks.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  I actually have a 3D printed PLA straw (nominally compostable) that I reuse (single layer so it can be cleaned/dried). Weird, not super feasible for most people, but I needed a straw and didn't have one.
- remir 7y ago
  I tried paper straws a couple of times at A&W and it wasn't that bad. Granted, it was a cold drink, which could perhaps be problematic with hot drinks, but beside a texture difference, I found the paper straw to be an acceptable replacement.
  - alacombe 7y ago
    They were probably coated with wax, which make them... non-recyclable.
    - ccozan 7y ago
      Sure, they will be dirty with whatever you drink too. But they are bio-degradable, compared to plastic.
    - jogjayr 7y ago
      Wax-coated paper is probably far safer to dispose by burning than plastic.
    - remir 7y ago
      I'm pretty sure platic straws are not being recycled. Paper straws are at least more sustainable.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  They just need more wax then. Cups made from paper work perfectly well; so should straws.
  - hedora 7y ago
    The cups are typically coated in plastic, last time I checked. (This is not obvious from looking at them though).
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      I can't say I'm a cup expert, but I'm quite sure that paper cups (or straws) can be made waterproof if impregnated with wax.
      - ccozan 7y ago
        You don't need to make them waterproof. How long do you plan to drink a soda or whatever else? My kids are done in max 10mins and they look mostly untouched. I left it for one hour in a hot cocoa though, and it was not intact anymore but still usable to a degree.
        darkpuma 7y ago
        Let's say somebody gets served their beverage when they sit down, then neglect it until after they're doing eating. In a cold beverage, I'd want a straw to last at least an hour. I don't think that should be hard to accomplish either.

amyjess 7y ago

Biodegradable plastic has its own issues as well. Nearly all of them are food-based and will set off one food allergy or another, plus you may also have issues with straws dissolving in hot liquids. Someone elsewhere in the thread mentioned straws made of lobster shells. In addition to shellfish allergies, such a straw isn't going to be suitable for anyone who's vegan, and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't kosher either (TBH, I'm Jewish, but I don't keep kosher, and I don't know enough about the laws of kashrut to say whether or not drinking out of a lobster-shell straw is equivalent to eating lobster).

Robotbeat 7y ago
Hard to drink hot liquids with a straw anyway (stirrers are another story). The plastics I'm think of are PLA and PHA. Mainly made of corn, but you could synthesize them from pure chemicals as well. Far more common than these "lobster shell" ones.
- amyjess 7y ago
  Honestly, even in cold liquids, I'd be worried about non-plastic straws getting soggy and/or melting if left long enough. I haven't specifically looked into PLA and PHA much, but a quick google sees PLA being referred to as "too good to be true" and having "misleading biodegradability". I'm not seeing such concerns about PHA, but I've also only spent like a minute looking it up, and I wouldn't be surprised if some more intensive searching turns up some serious drawbacks. I have turned up some concerns about bioplastic production competing with food for the same agricultural resources, though.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    PLA really needs an industrial composter to break down fully, but this is still better than traditional plastics. It's just polymerized lactic acid, which is common and naturally occuring in the human body. PHA generally breaks down faster in the natural environment (i.e. it's biodegradable, not just compostable) and it has similar properties to PLA. Straws use an absolutely minimal amount of material. I really don't think concern over agricultural resources is valid for such uses as it is compared to, say, the massive amounts used for biofuels. And of course, it's not as if metals have no resource requirements, either. A typical straw weighs about .42 grams and thus uses about as much agricultural material as two kernels of corn (about as many calories as two tic tacs). That's not the problem, here. To put that in perspective, the energy in that straw (about 0.005 kilowatt-hours) is less than we just wasted arguing about it online.