In the next few paragraphs, you will come to know the reasons why you should start using stainless steel drinking straws.
Straws – it’s not something you think about too much. Virtually every restaurant and fast food joint offer plastic straws to their customers when serving drinks. However, this innocent-looking object actually has a very sinister effect on the environment, and by switching to stainless steel drinking straws will reduce your carbon footprint significantly.
It’s harder to stop using plastic straws than you think
At your home, it might be as simple as purchasing a few sets of stainless steel drinking straws to stop using plastic straws, but when you’re not home it becomes a lot trickier to abstain. Firstly, you’ll almost always be offered a plastic straw when purchasing a drink at a restaurant or a fast-food joint.
In these cases, you’d have to be actively thinking of denying the offer to use a plastic straw. Some people might even look at you odd like, “What do you have against straws?”
Well, plastic straws actually have a huge negative environmental impact.
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Reasons why you should start using stainless steel drinking straws
For starters, stainless steel straws can be reused, meaning that if you keep them in mint condition, you could be using these straws for many years.
Conversely, plastic straws aren’t recyclable. They are too small for plastic grinders in recycling centers and usually end up in a landfill or the ocean.
These plastics take hundreds of years to bio-degrade and certain elements within the plastic will never biodegrade. If you haven’t seen the video of the turtle with a straw stuck up its nose, it’s quite heartbreaking.
The “Turtle who has been seen around the world” helped inspire a movement to get rid of plastic straws altogether.
One of the best things you could do to lend a hand is to switch to reusable straws. While there are many options, we prefer the stainless steel drinking straw option due to durability and ease of cleaning.
Longer lifespan
Another reason why we should be avoiding plastic straws altogether is due to the rate of consumption and shelf life. Firstly, in the US alone more than 500 million straws are being used daily. That’s a little over 1.5 billion straws annually. The average lifespan or “usefulness” of a plastic straw comes out to about 20 minutes (short lifespan) while that of reusable straws (stainless steel straws) are about 10 years or more.
Safe and convenient
It is no longer news that stainless steel straws can be used and reused over and over again. Most stainless steel drinking straws come with a cleaning brush, and if you’re smart, you can always keep one in either in a ziplock bag, in your purse or bag. This way, whenever you go out you can always have a reusable straw on hand. Especially if you have a YETI or Mallome Tumbler
Wrap up
The world is leaning towards a sustainable future. It’s important to play your part in the huge effort to reduce our negative impact on this planet. A simple switch to stainless steel drinking straws is definitely a good start.
