Written by Jo Nova
Would you like PFAS with that?
Wouldn’t you know — to make paper straws resistant to water, it seems we have to add Teflon type chemicals that stick around for thousands of years.
Researchers analyzed 39 brands of straws in Belgium and found two thirds contained PFAS, and the paper straws were the worst. Fully 90% of all the paper straws contained some form of PFAS. 80% of Bamboo straws did too, as did 75% of plastic straws. Even 40% of glass straws contained PFAS. The only type of straws that were free of it were steel.
The UK, Canadian, Belgium, New Zealand, and Australian governments banned plastic straws, as did some US States because “they were bad for the environment”.
Paper drinking straws may be harmful and may not be better for the environment than plastic versions
Science Daily
In the first analysis of its kind in Europe, and only the second in the world, Belgian researchers tested 39 brands of straws for the group of synthetic chemicals known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
PFAS were found in the majority of the straws tested and were most common in those made from paper and bamboo, the study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Food Additives and Contaminants, found.
PFAS are used to make everyday products, from outdoor clothing to non-stick pans, resistant to water, heat and stains. They are, however, potentially harmful to people, wildlife and the environment.
They break down very slowly over time and can persist over thousands of years in the environment, a property that has led to them being known as “forever chemicals.”
They have been associated with a number of health problems, including lower response to vaccines, lower birth weight, thyroid disease, increased cholesterol levels, liver damage, kidney cancer and testicular cancer.
Maybe accidental, maybe not…
It isn’t known whether the PFAS were added to the straws by the manufacturers for waterproofing or whether were the result of contamination. Potential sources of contamination include the soil the plant-based materials were grown in and the water used in the manufacturing process.
However, the presence of the chemicals in almost every brand of paper straw means it is likely that it was, in some cases, being used as a water-repellent coating, say the researchers.
Calling these straws “paper”, 100% biodegradable and fully compostable seems like false advertising.
H/t to Reader
Image by rodgersm222 from Pixabay
It beats me why people use straws to drink out of. This information should make them now think more than once as to whether to keep drinking out of ‘straws’ that are not made of straw.
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In a free society, whether or not to use a straw, like many other things, ought to be a personal choice. But if people choose to use them they should have a safe option like the plastic straws which we used to have. Green types are welcome to use paper, and should be encouraged to do so.
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What happened to the paper straws which appeared to have a wax like coating on them….ie the old fashion type that was common long before plastic straws came on the scene…..ie the wax coating could have been Bee’s wax ???
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Real men don’t drink through straws.
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I totally agree, except for milkshakes.
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Nah, thick shakes and milkshakes need them. Plus, you have to make that annoying sucking sound at the end to piss of the wife.
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Not so much the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the straw that eventually gave the camel another hump that should really be checked by a medical expert.
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With modern analytical methods we can find harmful chemicals everywhere. Alarmists use it to warn against anything, drinking water being a great example.
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I believe that has been linked to the Sphinx’s inscrutable smile….
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Like most “green” (sic) policies, they are based on a malicious lie.
The ban on plastic straws has its origins in the made-up “statistic” from a nine year old boy in California.
So he admits the figure is basically made-up but uses it anyway.
Another lie told by the Left is that plastic straws and other plastics used in the West end up in the oceans. Very little does because we dispose of our rubbish correctly.
It is places like India, China and SE Asia where rubbish is routinely thrown into rivers that are responsible for plastics in the oceans, not the West.
SEE
It’s just another war by the Left against convenience products, just like the plastic bag ban. The proponents of the free supermarket plastic bag ban falsely claimed they were a single use product. Everyone who used them knew that was a lie, they had a multitude of secondary uses and when they were eventually disposed of they were put into rubbish bins, not the ocean or the roadside or countryside.
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Actually David, it is the case that ‘many’ western countries export their rubbish overseas – to the countries you identify as polluters. This is NOT disposing of our rubbish responsibly, this is the usual hypocritical, corrupt BS.
Do you know where and how your local authority disposes of its rubbish ?
IMO, every country on the planet should be banned from exporting any of its rubbish overseas.
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That used to be true, but China quit taking overseas recycling back in 2019, and much of Asia has followed suit in the ensuing years. Now, many municipalities can’t find anyone to take their recycling waste, and just toss it in the dump.
Recycling is dead.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/
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As Steve4192 said, most of what was exported was recyclables. In Australia’s case, China stopped taking some, and in other cases the Australian Government banned it.
It is not economical to recycle plastic waste in Australia due to high “green” energy prices and Australia’s only plastics recycling plant shut down some years ago due to high green energy prices.
So now the recyclable waste just gets dumped in landfill although I think steel and aluminium cans are still recyclable as they are easy to electromagnetically separate from waste streams and don’t require much energy to melt (relatively).
In any case, the countries mentioned are entirely to blame for their inappropriate disposal of waste, no matter where it comes from. Those countries have little to know respect for the environment and drop rubbish wherever they feel like it, and it usually ends up in rivers. The West is not to blame.
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Yep
Just do a Google image search of ‘Philippine river garbage’ or ‘Pasig river garbage’.
It’s insane.
You can barely see the river beneath all the garbage.
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I reserve my cased collection of 200 plastic straws as a memento, and for use by anyone afflicted with cold sores, after dentistry etc. Straws are preferable for people with certain conditions, dementia, tremors from neurological damage etc. Ebay still has bulk supplies of plastic straws, along with singlet carry bags that are also banned in many places. I wish that those who promoted the ban on singlet bags could be made to care for someone who is incontinent.
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Straws are a necessity for the bed ridden and an aid to children.
The rare times I use a straw is when I enjoy a milkshake – mustache ya know.
As a personal, anecdotal observation, as my neighborhood ages and an inevitable lower class of owners and renters manifest, I see more discarded trash and, unfortunately, garbage of all types. Mostly the result of lack of pride, laziness and ubiquitous fast food.
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So that straw statistic was gathered from the straw manufacturers in the USA.
It has been confirmed by various government agencies for both the USA and the world
Also those countries listed as plastic polluters are also accepting the most plastic waste from the west.
But it is the left that is the problem
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The figure from the manufacturers was an estimate and not verified. And figures from woke governments can’t be trusted.
In any case, in Western countries straws and all rubbish is properly disposed of. What does it matter?
And Western countries aren’t responsible for how the countries I mentioned inappropriately dispose of their waste.
It must be a terrible thing to have a phobia of straws, Peter. This woman was cured of her straw phobia. https://youtu.be/EoKHBHCb4CQ
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Read my second line
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Read my second sentence.
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But think of the turtles!
https://i.redd.it/18462lab2kb21.jpg
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“Fully 90% of all the paper straws contained some form of PFAS. 80% of Bamboo straws did too, as did 75% of plastic straws. Even 40% of glass straws contained PFAS. The only type of straws that were free of it were steel.”
Well at least the only downside of steel is face, neck, eyeball, or brain, penetration in event of accident.
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Accidently giving yourself a prefrontal lobotomy with a steel straw …. I can see that. The upside is you would be able to barrack for Collingwood, vote for the Greens and watch breakfast television.
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It’s difficult to tell whether a steel straw has been cleaned properly, especially if it’s the type that has a bend in it.
South Americans have been drinking tea through straws made of silver for a long time … if you are drinking tea with company you bring your own personal straw but the house provides the cups.
Poor people end up drinking with the old traditional straw made out of … you guessed it … straw!
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Silver straws might be OK (hygiene wise) due to the oligodynamic effect, the ability of some metals to sterilise themselves due to ionic activity of the metal having an antimicrobial effect.
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Tea tends to be fairly safe … they don’t use milk and rarely use sugar. The tradition is to drink while it’s still fairly hot, such that it is at the limit of what people can tolerate … usually about 50C
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The old mate (with the symbol over the e, pronounced martay). That stuff tastes like horse chaff.
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It used to be the case that news reports would tell tales of unusual things containing pesticides like DDT, or more generally, “organophosphates”, followed by antibiotics and other drugs in waste water, particulates from diesel engines, then, of course, “micro plastics”.
Now, it seems they’ve firmly moved to PFAS and Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).
Not to deny or diminish the fact that these chemicals are around the place where they probably shouldn’t be, but there does seem too be a bit of a reporting trend.
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So people don’t want the inconvenience of soggy paper straws or the chemical exposure and the pretend-environmentalists have banned plastic straws.
They then use metal straws, of questionnable hygiene due to the difficulty of cleaning them.
And something magical happens….
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/woman-dies-metal-straw-elena-struthers-gardner-inquest-coroner-a8996431.html
Woman dies after being impaled by metal straw
https://www.today.com/health/health/metal-straw-punctures-throat-artery-brain-rcna45635
Metal straw punctures 4-year-old’s throat, artery to brain: How his life was saved
https://sprudge.com/are-metal-straws-safe-why-some-experts-say-no-177809.html
Are Metal Straws Safe? Why Some Experts Say No!
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David,
To be fair , how many people have been killed with plastic straws ? Jason Statham must have used a few….
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How many plastic straws does it take to equal the amount of plastic in a Tesla?
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[…] From Jo Nova: […]
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Luckily, to drink a nice single malt or a good red, you don’t need a straw.
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Och aye, thar’s what yer mouth is made for.
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I practice with a malt whisky every night before going to bed …… still not got it quite right but happy to keep practicing. 🏴
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“It isn’t known whether the PFAS were added to the straws by the manufacturers for waterproofing or whether were the result of contamination.”
Wouldn’t you think that before publishing a research paper, the Researchers would have done a bit more research and asked the manufacturers?
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Anything that lasts for thousands of years in the environment is pretty stable and obviously doesn’t interact with the environment easily. Hard to see how small quantities could cause all sorts of human health issues.
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The more fluorinated a molecule is, the more stable it is, therefore less chemically reactive. Fluorine bonds are among the strongest bonds possible.
Freon 12 is CF2-Cl2. Very stable. Teflon is poly-CF4, incredibly stable. SF6 is so stable that even under megawatt arc conditions in vacuum switches it ionizes and reforms back into SF6. The fluorochemical issue is with ring structures that can reform into double bonded linear structures, like PerfluoroCycloButane, C4F8, the propellant gas in Cheez Whiz. It can reform into PerfluoroIsoButylene, F 2 C=C (CF 3) 2, a very toxic chem warfare agent, some 10 times more toxic than phosgene/mustard gas.
Fluorination usually stabilizes a compound, but everything depends upon the bond strengths and toxicology. It isn’t rational to ban things without serious investigation of toxicity and possible transformation situations.
I’m unconvinced that this PFAS scare is based upon anything but hysteria and ignorance. Show me the chemistry, not they hype.
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Are there any green measures that don’t actually make things worse ?
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And of course the paper straws come in a hygenic plastic wrap…
The solution is already out there, has been for a while now, it’s mycelium based and easily biodegradable.
One example below, but there are many companies getting into it:
https://mushroompackaging.com/
Search Mycelium biodegradable for loads more…
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PFAS is basically harmless. It’s another beat up.
Here is why it is harmless. We have been using Teflon frypans since the Apollo program. When you fry something in a frypan with oil the heat and oxygen from the air slowly degrade the Teflon coating. The degradation products are PFAS and they’re soluble in cooking oil. You then eat it.
People have been consuming vast quantities of PFAS for decades. Do you notice any great dyings? No? Funny that.
Besides which PFAS is slowly excreted from the body. The half life is something like five years. I read a report on that but unfortunately I didn’t bookmark it.
We get these stupid waaah we’re all going to diieee fraudulent scare campaigns increasingly these days. I think it is because the education system has been so dumbed down that most people can’t do research and check the veracity of claims themselves any more – which is what the old-style classical education was about. You were taught to think, and to reason. Not any longer.
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There seems to be a lot of claims of PFAS toxicity but little to no evidence of toxicity for the quantities likely to be ingested.
There is a review paper here that basically concludes that more work is needed and hundreds of PFAS lack toxicity data.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7906952/
Another issue is that the sensitivity of chemical analysis is extremely high these days. Just because a substance can be detected, doesn’t mean it is necessarily harmful.
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So right David. There is a science of toxicology which most of the population do not understand. If people were informed of the ” natural” carcinogens in most fruit and vegetables, that we know little about, they would be shocked. But PFAS measured in ppb, quick lets all panic.
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As a child many years ago, I was taught to wash all fruit and vegetables BEFORE eating….. Something about farm sprays and things added in processing
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In 2004, DuPont paid US$300 million as an out-of-court settlement to around 50,000 residents who lived near its West Virginia plant and who brought a class action against the company, claiming it was responsible for contaminating local water supplies with PFOA, causing birth defects and other health hazards. The company settled without admitting liability.
https://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2006/02/23/1576391.htm
https://www.dw.com/en/pfas-forever-toxins-teflon/a-57756695
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cancer-deaths-by-type-grouped?time=earliest..2016
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Yeah. Same here in Newcastle, the usual suspects have been after the Williamtown air base for years for use of PFAS in firefighting foam. Minute amounts of it got into the water table and residents have been unhappy and want compo. It’s totally harmless, but the screeching of activists has meant that their houses are basically unsaleable, and valuations have collapsed. So they have a point, but not for scientific or health reasons.
It’s like a medieval scene where someone has claimed, for their own reasons, that houses in the area are haunted by invisible demons. There’s nothing you can do about it. The demons aren’t able to be gotten rid of because they don’t exist. Yet everyone believes they exist so the houses are unsaleable. It’s pure mysticism with no basis in fact.
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The activists are generally the property owners, they shoot themselves in the foot.
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Problem with those fry pans is they are nonstick, for a short while. Then they’re the opposite, stick. I hate them.
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Paper straws offer no advantage. Greenpeace activists can still shove them up turtles’ noses.
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How’s the nose going these days, we still have bank notes to roll up, not sure how well digital rolls up though.
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Not me! I just happen to have a nickname.
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Coles supermarkets years ago went to the recycled plastic bags. Because, wow, we’re going to save all those trees. Then the governments banned those small plastic bags, even though you still use them for bagging fruit and vegetables. This week, Coles announces it’s doing away with the recycled plastic bags to be replaced with large paper bags. So, now we’re back to cutting down trees again. Will this madness never end?
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“Will this madness never end?”
No, not only have allegedly single use plastic bags been banned, every supermarket has decided to single wrap every item they know will increase profitability and the environment can “go hang”.
Now we have lamb chops vacuum packed on individual trays with multi layer films that cannot be recycled. Great for profit but does NOTHING to decrease plastic use. Genuine single use stuff that gets torn of the product and thrown away. All good, great for the profit margin. Supermarkets are phasing out delicatessen counters, dont buy anything in bulk, go to the refrigerated section and buy very small quantities of, say, sliced meat, all beautifully plastic wrapped in single use film. Oh, and dont even ask that it takes over 90% more plastic film to wrap two individual serves of 100 gms of say sliced meat than it does to wrap one serve of 200gms. All to be thrown away as landfill without a single question ever being asked by government deptartments or environmental groups.
Hypocrisy and bull s__T writ very large.
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Funny also how no-one every mentions the gazillions of tons of PPE thrown away during the COVID bollocks either. All those one-use face masks worn by billions, now all sitting in land fill somewhere.
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Oh, I thought they would be swirling in a giant patch in the Pacific?
Scheduled to be collected by virtue signaling environmentalists and then taken to a landfill.
Of course, once handed off to the Third World landfill entrepreneurs, are then dumped in the ocean to reassemble in the Pacific patch.
Repeat.
Narrative Space created for ‘The Sky is Falling We’re All Gonna Die XXVIII: The Final Final Countdown’.
Win, win.
The unimpressed are conveniently confined to retirement facilities trying to rant (on JoNova) through their face masks and begging for a plastic straw, because their children are all dead.
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FYI, the up and coming Third World is California.
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Never fear Ross, all that unused and useless PPE enabled the transfer of money from the tax payers to the criminally corrupt friends of the politicians. Here is some for your entertainment;
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-66614508
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Sambar,
The fast food industry is a classic example of hypocrisy with the bamboo cutlery and paper straws and all desserts in plastic containers . Some would argue the food is plastic too…
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This is the chaotic mind of the environmentalist. It’s one thing, then the other. All emotion, no rationality.
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Law of unintended consequences. Yu do not know what yu do not know.
Inventors do not foresee all the applications of their discoveries.
(The inventor of the laser, oh, and the wheel…)
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Personally I prefer the Woolworths fruit and vege bags. They come on that roller which then automatically does the opening for you. The Coles ones are still the old rip and fumble types.
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‘The Coles ones are still the old rip and .. lick your finger to separate the opening edge’. Did wonders in the Covid panic amongst the old ladies watching ..
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There is a better way that mostly works well. Stretch the opening towards one side, almost failsafe. If that fails, very rarely, I look for a box of broccoli and dip a fingertip into the water in the bottom of the box and use that instead of the disgusting licking method.
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“Forever chemical” is another concept that has “scare” attached to it, but is anti-science..
First, it takes very sensitive instruments to detect it. Thus, finding it in steel straws. So what, the question is one of harm to health additional to existing harms. The poison is in the dose.
Where are the bodies with PFAS on the death certificates?
We have similar scare problems with the tiny amounts of nuclear radiation that anti-science people have used for decades to slow the progress of humanity -largely because the cheap scintillometer is so sensitive that zealots find danger everywhere.
Second, what is the problem with forever chemicals? We have lived with limestone. The white cliffs of Dover formed from 100 to 66 million years ago. Are they to be branded as forever harmful? Most of the materials around us are long lived. That is why we value them. Diamonds are forever. Gold looks great on the finger.
The Forever Chemical concept is for frightening children as they learn about Life. Why are we exposing them to distant fears when they should be cherished with all that is lovely in Life?
(And, that turtle with straw in nose, was it photographed with the straw going in or going out? So easy to fake what must be an extremely rare, inconsequential event – but wonderful impact if you are on a cause.) Geoff S
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Yes its the “testing regime” that determines alledged threats to human health. A few decades ago Sydney water supply decided to test its water for giardia and cryptosporidium. New tests, super sensitive, and lo and behold they detected both microorganisms. Two instant responses, news headlines “Sydney water not safe to drink” and a class action by people who suddenly claimed to be “made ill” by drinking the water.
The fact that water supplies throught the world can all record evidence of these organisms just didn’t seem to matter. Do they cause illness, yes. Can they be picked up from anywhere in the environment, yes. Were the levels in Sydneys water above acceptable limits, no. Had they always been there but undetected, without doubt.
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You only need to go back years, covid in the sewerage.
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Are plastic straws banned in Asian countries, where the vast majority of the litter comes from? The amount of high school level environmental ideas that are making it these days astonishes me.
Western countries are pretty good with litter and waste control. Though I must admit the Zoomer generation seem to have dropped it. Highways are increasingly littered with fast food packaging around my parts. We need another Philip Adams’ Do The Right Thing campaign
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Speaking of Phillip Adams, with the recent passing of Parkinson, the ABC has available online, repeats of Parkinson in Australia, from 79 or 82. Very interesting viewing. It has as guests that Gough era intelligencia brigade, and their social revolution ideas, scathing against Australian culture, including their rather British accents. Adams as one, and also Barry Humphries. And did you catch Adams’ words on Humphries passing? Brief mention that he was a clever artist but then rambled on as to what a deeply troubled man he was. Disgusting. Imo Adams is the most pompous Trotskyite Australia has produced. I loathe the guy.
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That’s multimillionaire most pompous Trotskyite.
And despite him endlessly going on about how cultural artefacts in Western museums should be returned to “their rightful owners”, even though such objects would no longer exist if they had been left in their place of origin, Adams has a substantial collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts.
When once questioned why he doesn’t return those, he replied that he didn’t need to as “there is loads of that stuff”.
If it were not for the double or triple standards of the Left, they would have no standards whatsoever.
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The plastic in the oceans scare has been greatly exaggerated. By both environmental and science groups. I spend a lot of time walking on a beach in Victoria close to a major river outlet. I have done the same on holiday in southern Qld. Very rarely do I see any plastic on the beach. If there is plastic it’s mostly what’s been likely jettisoned from fishing boats. Never seen a plastic straw ever ! It’s another one of those scams, science distortions on a par with social distancing during COVID. Some high school modelling project which got popular.
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1) PFAS is harmless -> see above comment.
2) The concentrations measured were between 1 and 10PPB(!) so in a straw that weighs less than a gram, you’ve got nanograms at the most. If all that ends up in a 100kg person you end up with 1 in 10^13 – which is just stupid to be even talking about.
3) Normal straws are also harmless.
Complete beatup.
Why are we doing this to ourselves?
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Completely agree Barry. Opponents of any possible contamination of foods generally have no idea about toxicology. Usually ignore the basic rule of ” the dose determines the poison”. If you’re measuring contamination levels down to ppb units, their effect is virtually non existent. Especially when you consider the filtration capabilities of the human body to contaminants.
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Barry,
Years ago the Technical Director came to me and said that he had worked out (as was his hobby) that the latest scare was serious as it meant that people would have to drink 763,000 cans of soft drink. Thinking he was being facetious I said “very serious”. He agreed, usually these things mean they would need to swallow 3 or 4 million cans to cause problems.
His other foible was to calculate the analysis figures in p.p.b. as 10 mls. in a swimming pool, and 10 mls. of that water (well mixed) could be added to another swimming pool and 10 mls. of that could be mixed into a third swimming pool.
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Where I live now, they have plastic, straws, bags , cuos, cutlery, plates, even Styrofoam takeaway containers. Bliss. You can keep it Australia…bwahaha
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I suspect you’re probably in an Asian country? Met a guy outside a bakery in Richmond suburb of Melbourne between COVID lockdowns in 2021. Just returned from Thailand, about to go back. Couldn’t believe the COVID bollocks madness in Victoria. He also commented about roadworks repair in Thailand. Ute pulls up in the middle of a major road to repair a hole, the crew put out a few witches hats, maybe some flashing lights. Fix the hole , move on. In Victoria, they slow traffic down for 5km with bollards, flashing mobile signs, safety trucks and about a dozen people holding Stop/Go signs. He couldn’t believe it and couldn’t get back to Thailand quick enough.
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I am perfectly happy with paper bags, straws, cutlery and paper plates. It keeps our logging and forestry industry busy cutting trees and employing people.
We even cut down whole forests, chop them up, put the chips on boats and ship them to the UK to be burned for electricity. We are paid 10x more for this wood than it normally sells for. Cha-ching!
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The United States could not make a straw safe, how can they make pharmaceuticals safe?
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… and all because the Children of Ullapool wants ..( Actually it was from Sunnyside in the CITY ) and funny how our local newspaper never told us all that.
..and then too, if you’re not for us , you are against us …SNP Independence, er, em Dependent upon EU / Westminster £$$$$ s. So , we’re with you Jeannie.
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I wonder about the “green” foot print of these stupid paper straws as well as their unit cost. When we go to the movies my daughter buys a frozen coke and they give her two straws as they just don’t last before going all soggy and are useless. Whats the process for making the straws, wood pump from some source to make the paper, transport costs to get the rolls of paper to the straw manufacturer, then the actual manufacturing process then shipping to the customers and then finally to the end consumer. Plastic straws, make the resin from a fossil fuel source, put it into an extruder, extrude the straw, etc. Surely the simplicity of making a plastic straw vs the complex process to make a paper straw would win hands down on price and environmental impact and CO2 emissions.
Don’t get me started on bamboo cutlery – what a joke! The unit cost must be so much more than the humble single use plastic spoons, and knives and forks. Oh and their mouth feel, bleahhhh……
It like when people tell me how much they love glass jars as they are so much more environmentally friendly, I just laugh. Mining of the materials, the energy to run the furnace to melt the glass, energy to run the molding units. The weight of the glass jar and how much that adds to transport costs. Recyclability, yeah nah, glass is pretty much a contaminant in our recycle bins which is why many councils are now adding another bin just for glass.Plastic is so much better for its environmental and CO2 impact than glass would ever be.
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That’s what we were told , years ago.
Just like use diesel cars in London
Just like get a jab
Just like get rid of your pre2016 diesel car
Just like …. ( I don’t like) follow the flock… FLOCK ! _ I am not a part of that church.
JUst WATCH “How things are made” and you wouldn’t come out with HALF of the rubbish we have to like.
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Paper straws often come wrapped in plastic sleeves.
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The last straw for me was when I was about ten and I had importuned my mother to buy me a packet of flavour straws to make milk taste like a strawberry milkshake. These straws had a felt wick inside which was impregnated with flavour chemicals. I’ve never liked straws since then. Straws can be unhygienic. People who share a straw probably don’t realize that when they stop sucking, some of the liquid they sucked up siphons back from their mouth into the shared beverage which, effectively, is an exchange of bodily fluids. Anyhow for those who like finding alternate uses for things, here’s a link to unusual uses for straws: https://www.instructables.com/11-unusual-uses-for-straws/
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On the subject of off-label uses for plastic straws (banned in Australia), using them for holding small quantities of liquids and powders is very useful for backpacking. I have done this myself.
Here is a video: https://youtu.be/gsczXA4QMx0
It is also mentioned in the Instructables link STJOHNOFGRAFTON posted.
The Left ruin everything.
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INdeed, ” OFF-LABEL ” anything is scorned upon, like Up-cycling tyres… what a waste of a good “raw” material just have to watch PronounTube to see more.
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“If I accept the lowest in me, I lower a seed into the ground of Hell.
The seed is invisibly small, but the tree of life grows from it and conjoins the Below with the Above.
At both ends there is fire and blazing embers.
The Above is fiery and the Below is fiery.
Between the unbearable fires grow your life.
You hang between these two poles.
In an immeasurably frightening movement the stretched hanging welters up and down.
We thus fear our lowest, since that which one does not possess is forever united with the chaos and takes part in its mysterious ebb and flow.
Insofar as I accept the lowest in me — precisely that red glowing sun of the depths, the upper shining sun also rises.
Therefore he who strives for the highest finds the deepest.”
— Carl Jung
As above, so below…
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John,
I would add : the road to hell is paved with good intentions . The only things we truly own are our choices . Everything else can be taken away .
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It occurs to me that the chief cause of problems might be “solutions.”
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Easy solution to this. Ban pfas from straws.
I carry a reusable silicon straw which I will now investigate if I am sucking in toxins while reducing my contribution to landfill.
Was surprised by comments like, “It beats me why people use straws to drink out of”. Maybe pay a visit to a hospital.
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Hypocrisy (or stupidity) …
– in almost all major coffee shop chains, the staws are made of paper. Still, the cups and lids are made of plastic.
– some small drinks (100~200ml) in my local supermarkt that had plastic straws, now also come with paper straws. Still, the wrapping of the straws is plastic.
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Not the cups too!
Paper cups no better than plastic: Research exposes hidden toxicity
https://www.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-756288
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