It was the Sumerians who used a straw made of rye straw to drink beer as early as 4000 BC. A strange idea from a southern German point of view, but necessary at the time to prevent the absorption of fermentation by-products. It was not until 1888 that the American Marvin C. Stone invented the modern paper drinking straw. The fact that the glue in the bourbon dissolved spoiled the joy and led to further attempts at optimization. The straw was coated with wax, later replaced by a plastic model – and that’s where the trouble started. In Germany alone, 40 billion plastic drinking straws end up in the trash at the end of each year.
They have been banned across the EU for a year now. One less climate nuisance, you could say. Experience also shows, however, that the elimination of one evil (coal, lousy spouse, plague) is often followed by another evil (nuclear energy, even lousy spouse, cholera). And always when you don’t just get rid of a nuisance. Instead, it was replaced by a supposedly better alternative. Just as the plastic drinking straws have been replaced – by fancy drinking straws made of bamboo, paper, glass, metal, silicone, even tube noodles and whatever else is suitable for sucking.
The new straws are a well-intentioned measure, no question. Just not a satisfactory one. Otherwise tube noodles and bamboo tubes would have prevailed over plastic much earlier.
If you wait long enough, the noodle straw will be al dente
Let’s take the paper version: while dreamily sucking on a sundowner from a mason jar, you can sometimes wonder whether it’s a good idea to cut down trees for a product that you have to pull out in good time before it goes limp, so that it doesn’t dissolve in the drink . The same happens with drinking straws made from raw pasta dough. Oh, if only the people around you would stick to your lips like this soaked macaroni while monologizing, from which environmentally conscious party guests have recently been sipping their cocktails. Admittedly, if you wait long enough, you could use the straw afterwards al dente consume. But do you want that?
It has not been proven whether you risk a freezer burn on your lip when drinking iced coffee from cool metal tubes. However, water quickly takes on a metallic taste – even though it has been proven not to contain any iron. It shows that they can also be life-threatening the dramatic death British dressage rider Elena Struthers-Gardner. When she collapsed in her kitchen, she was holding a glass with a metal drinking straw – which pierced her eye and brain.
No doubt about it, when it comes to drinking straws, it’s the alternatives that make you melancholy, not the plastic.
It is undisputed that better solutions are needed in many areas – above all for fuel and energy. Only sometimes the hip alternatives don’t help much, as a conclusion after the first year without plastic straws shows. Then it’s better to go straight back to zero, to where it all began. Recently they are back: Straws in their original form, made of straw, on request even straws made of certified organic rye. With a thing like that in your mouth, you know how a ruminant feels. This promotes closeness to nature.
And if that doesn’t work with the real, true straw, there is always an alternative: to grow up and let the sucking be. If you don’t want that, you can get a sippy cup. It is mostly made of hard plastic and can therefore be reused.