Are Paper Straws actually OK now?

Recently, as I was sipping my Ice Whipped Tiramisu Latte Cofi Desert Drink from Big Café Chain, I had a realisation: this paper straw isn’t so bad!

In 2020 — nearly 5 years ago now — Britain banned plastic straws. The first wave of replacements were generally poor. Some establishments switched to sip cup lids. But generally I thought of them as a lost cause. I was involuntarily served a straw with my beverage recently and expected to need to sip it quickly to prevent it from disintegrating in my mouth. Or abandon the straw entirely. To my surprise and delight, it survived!

Now this is a funny little thing, but also — if we think about it for a second — something that should be expected. People want to improve things. And some people liked straws. Therefore, someone would make a good one within the bounds of the new law, companies would buy them, and people would use them without issue.

The first wave of replacements here were thin, flimsy straws that quickly came apart in your mouth. Obviously this led to complaints, with some pushing back against the law itself.

Even the humble straw is subject to technological improvements. The one I had today was much thicker, studier. It was even coloured in a brand appropriate colour. The general number in use seems to have declined: eliminating an expense entirely always sounds good to businesses. But maybe I’m just not going to as many fast food outlets recently. For my wallet and my waistline, ya know?

Have you had a different experience of straws? I do wonder how the international straw situation is going. Are businesses in your area still trying to supply you with terrible straws? It’s OK to complain! Cajole your local businesses into actually purchasing the better ones for a superior drinking experience. A decent paper straw can be had. Do the paper straws inevitably have a different mouthfeel? Sure. I still prefer a good glass or glazed mug over paper and plastic cups. Recently I’ve been switching to steel water bottles as my plastic ones broke. Will a paper straw last until the end of civilization itself like the plastic ones will? No, but that’s sort of the point. They’re used once and thrown away. They should be as easy to decompose as they are to throw away.

Plastic pollution was the issue. An issue we have made a slight improvement upon, but still have a long way to go. The shear volume of it, the unrelenting push of plastics manufacturing into duplicating every single manufactured item in existence and 10,000 variations therein, and coming up with endless new trinkets besides. Cups, trays, tables, chairs, cutlery, toys, even building supplies. If everyone did what they were supposed to and every item ever made ended up in a proper recycling or disposal facility, it’d be better. But frankly we don’t hold the manufacturers and suppliers to account well enough. They created and profit from the items that cause the problem — it’s not only on the end users or local governments.

So a ban is a harsh rule, but a simple one. And a rule we can keep extending to other product categories if other ways forward are not forthcoming, and are not progressing quickly enough. Ban more plastic stuff.

Plastic pollution can build up by the way. Entering the river, the sea, and the food chain. Our food chain. Plastic pollution ends up in us. Our collective pollution of the environment we live in, farm in, fish in, exist in, comes back to pollute our own bodies. How much profit or convenience is that worth? There isn’t a reasonable answer. unacceptable.

It was strange though, wasn’t it: focusing in on one visible item, with a choking hazard centred around one amenable, struggling species — the turtle — and bans were achieved in some places. It was rightly criticised that it didn’t go far enough since there are all sorts of other plastics in use — but that’s not a reason to UNDO it, is it?.

Is the plastic straw a useful lesson? I think so, yes, there were teething problems. Some people and businesses just gave them up, a few stockpiled plastic straws, and others just made a better paper alternative, others bought those better alternatives, and now those people just keep going almost like nothing happened. It’s success is a reason to go further

Whether it is plastic cups, trays, toys, sheets, we can successfully bring down the level of polluting plastic in use. One item or category at a time. Preferably we should go quicker than that. We’ll find different ways, make better alternatives. The world won’t fall apart from being cleaned of one category of pollutants.

Some complain that it is an additional expense for people that are already struggling. But how does one build wealth when we are destroying the systems upon which that wealth is derived? The land, the sea, the air. The rivers, lakes, the forests, the farms. Our environment, the food we can get out of it, is the bedrock upon which any society is built. No food. Nothing else matters. Continuing to pollute and damage these systems will inevitably lead to poverty. Not wealth. There are other causes of poverty, of course, but dealing with one would be great.

This impoverishment is felt deep in my culture. The price of a local traditional dish — fish and chips — has jumped 50% in just 5 years (2020 to 2025). What, really is the benefit of a few pence saved on a plastic fork to eat the fish with when the price of fish itself has increased so much due to dwindling supplies in the seas? The price increases from stretched supply of essential food eclipses the “savings” of “cheap” materials to eat them with immediately.

True wealth is in building upon and maintaining a robust and bountiful system. Starting with food and water. Money doesn’t nourish. Digital currencies don’t quench thirst. Protecting that system and it’s bounty is the highest priority. The mouthfeel of paper versus plastic matters not when you have naught to drink with it or cannot afford the beverage in the first place.

Pollution is not the only factor affecting fishing stocks, of course, of course... Overfishing, fishing practices, lack of protections in “international” waters. Those need to be tackled too. But c’mon. The paper straw is fine.

I’m getting off topic and muddling things together a bit as I often do.

Suffice to say: people are smart and can adapt. There are people willing to build improved non-polluting products. It just takes the correct rules to make that market’s waste stop damaging other ones. Especially the most important ones. No we don’t eat turtles, but no species is improved with a polluted environment. Everything we make and do is subject to iteration and improvement on design. We just have to make the change, and let that process happen. A few years for better straws is practically the blink of an eye. So let’s just keep going with more products.

Thanks for reading.

See you next time :)

-RR

Mo 15th Sep 2025