Author: Emily Ludolph / Source: 99U by Behance
With plastic straw bans going into effect across the country, eco-friendly alternatives are catching on with consumers.
Like so many inventions, the lowly plastic drinking straw didn’t mean to cause trouble. From the mid-20th century until recently, it was the gold standard in food service: it was durable, cheap, and didn’t muddy people’s root beer floats like its paper predecessor.
Today, the plastic straw is the poster child of single-use plastic and its ill effects on the world’s oceans. A slew of cities and states across the U.S. including New York City, San Francisco and Portland, Ore., have either passed or proposed legislation to ban plastic straws, despite warnings from advocacy groups who argue their actions neglect the needs of people with disabilities. Major corporations such as Starbucks, Hyatt and Disney will phase them out over the next few years, and more are expected to follow.
While some innovators are creating disposable alternatives for businesses, others are targeting the consumer market with reusable drinking straws designed to be toted around. Their thinking: If canvas totes and stainless steel water bottles can become ubiquitous, why can’t reusable straws?
It’s a question that some consumers are beginning to answer for themselves. Sara Olson, a 26-year-old critical care nurse living in the Los Angeles area, purchased her first set of reusable straws in August after finding that several local restaurants had ditched straws entirely. While she supported the environmental reasoning, she couldn’t shake her preference for sips, not gulps.
“I just love a straw; I don’t know how to explain it,” she says. “As a nurse, I have a lot of patients that I’m passing medications to and they love straws as well.”
So Olson searched Amazon for reusable straws and stumbled upon Softy Straws, a brand of brightly-colored silicone straws sold in packs of four or five for around $12 to $15. She carries them around in her purse in the pouch they arrived in, and cleans them with a specially-designed straw brush after she uses them.
“People not only want to live a more eco-friendly life, they want to be seen as being eco-friendly.”
She says switching to a reusable straw has been seamless. “I use it all the time,” she says. “Every time we go out for drinks, I use it. If I’m getting coffee from Starbucks and I need to stir in my cinnamon, I’ll use that as my stirrer. I tell my patients about them as well.”
She’s hardly alone. The reusable straw trend has spread on Instagram,…
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