My Last Straw!

So if you live in Europe you have probably encountered paper straws

With the EU banning them in 2021 restaurants, street vendors and shops all have to stop using them. While the idea behind it should be commended (saving the environment from pollution), it begs the question: what should actually replace the handy and easy to use plastic straws?

Well, if you have been having drinks outside you have probably encountered the now already infamous paper straw. The latest manifestation at McDonald's looks like this, to be exact:

Wow! What a mess!

My case against paper straws is as follows: Not only are you actually chewing on a piece of paper/cardboard (a taste so pleasant that it should not to be withheld from you), but their function that originally was to get the beverage from a cup to your mouth is a complete failure! to put it short: they don't work (at all!)

As you can see from the picture after only a few short suctions the paper/cardboard is already dissolving into a complete mess. The outer layer is losing its structure and is falling apart so that you most likely end up with two holes (one that leads to nowhere). The other point to mention is that the straw gets soft as well. This leads to the following dilemma: while squeezing your lips together in order to create the desired suction effect the straw gets squeezed as well. But unlike a plastic straw that provides a firm resistance, the paper/cardboard straw gets also squeezed. So the harder you suck, the harder you fail.

Who actually invented these things?! Someone creating this abomination should definitely get a demotion. I mean this thing gets 1/5 stars.

• The taste of every single beverage is destroyed (both taste wise, and also from the coarse paper feel you get in your mouth)
• Failure to deliver! It simply doesn't work (at all!)
• The only positive thing I can come up with coincides with the idea from which it was so hastily created: it fits the regulations.

That's right, it is an invention purely to gratify the regulator's needs to bring about chaos. It's not about the environment, but about rules to fit a bill within a too short of a time frame. If it were about the environment, we could have thought about better solutions. One from the top of my head would be to make them from recycled plastics. It's not that there is any lackage thereof. But no -- instead, we get paper/cardboard straws that perhaps aren't even that eco friendly when people decide to throw them on the ground rather than the bin (you know, because they are "degradable").

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