Imagine you wait all day to get a cold drink and the second you pop a straw into it, it disintegrates, and your day is ruined. Paper straws have been a big topic since July 2018, when Seattle officially became the first prominent US city in food service to ban plastic straws. Many believe paper straws are more eco-friendly and better for the environment. However, many studies have shown this isn’t true. Many places offer both paper and plastic straws, depending on what facility. The topic was reintroduced when President Trump signed an executive order declaring, “Ending procurement and forced use of paper straws.”
Paper Straws have been known to date back to a long time ago. The creation of straws has predated as far as 3,000 BC when it was found in ancient Sumerian Tombs. An inventor by the name of Marvin Stone invented the modern paper straw because he believed it was better for the environment. He was inspired to do this after using a ryegrass straw that disintegrated, leaving a weird residue in his beverage. This caused Stone frustration, and eager to solve this problem, he took a pencil, wrapped paper around it, and then glued the end, covering it in wax. The straw is now used in many facilities such as zoos and many restaurants.
People may think that paper straws are better for the environment because they can last as long as 500 years. While this can be true, they can also contain hazardous chemicals. These chemicals are known as (PFAS) which is short for poly and perfluoroalkyl. They can cause much harm to your body, such as bone variation, lower antibodies, and even kidney and testicular cancer (metro.co.uk). Also, to get paper straws, trees need to be cut down since trees are needed to make paper. The more trees are cut down, the worse it is for our environment. Trees are one of the main sources we need for a good environment. They provide oxygen, global warming, reduce air pollution and so much more. But by cutting these trees to make paper straws we are doing so much damage to our environment. In addition to being harmful to the environment, paper straws are 5 times more expensive than plastic straws (plastic straws on average cost $0.005 cents while paper straws cost $0.25 cents to make).
President, Donald J Trump, signed an executive order stating the ban on paper straws. According to Trump, he says paper straws, “don’t work.” Ninth grader Chris Duarte states, “Yes I agree with this statement because paper straws break and become soggy in a short amount of time which defeats the purpose.” President Trump also says they do not last very long. Why is this statement true? It is a universal experience to try and drink out of a paper straw and see it start disintegrating. This can be very stressful. Yes, we want to reduce the use of plastic, but do we want thousands of trees cut down to have a disintegrating straw that’s impossible to drink out of? That defeats the purpose of even using a straw at that point. So, you might be thinking, well, what else could we use as an alternative? Well, the answer is reusable straws such as hard plastic or silicone straw. According to ninth grader Chris Duarte he states, “I believe that using an alternative can help the environment and also help me not have to constantly discard paper straws when they start disintegrating.” By doing this, we can help both our environment and us from going through the trouble of having to deal with a disintegrating straw or harmful chemicals in our bodies.
