World News

Disposable products are gonna have problems to keep them cheap. The solution to straws is non-dispossble straws, always was.

Also this is still a silly topic, straws won't save the planet.

Strongly recommend hay straws (like, made of "straw").

They're better than paper in that they don't sog up. They're inconsistent in size but that has never bothered me. A little flimsy, but I stir iced drinks with them all the time.

No comment on the level of PFAS aside from

though the levels were low

This is just feeding the outrage machine to get clicks. If it was a story they'd be citing concentration guidelines and telling you what concentrations were found in the products. It's not a story, it's rage bait.

Once in a restaurant I got some longe macaroni pasta as a straw and I still think this was genius.

If I'm not mistaken, manufacturing facilities spray PFAS agents on various conveyor parts to prevent pulp from sticking to them and therefore require stoppage and cleaning. In other words, PFAS reduce the time and money spent on cleaning manufacturing equipment. Congratulations shareholders!

We have a couple metal straws and washable plastic ones. The metal ones probably have lead and the plastic ones are made of baby kittens.

Drink directly from the glass.

“All the straw manufacturers should take warning and say, ‘Hey, do we use this stuff?’ Because at the moment, they’re not even asking that question,”
That is kind of concerning!

PFAS is everywhere at this point. Unfortunately they're reeeeeally good at what they're designed for and they're cheap. We'll need viable alternatives so they can be phased out. I think they should be banned from products that don't really need them like dental floss and hopefully we come up with an enzyme or something that can cheaply break it down in the environment.

Side note, there has been at least one study that shows that donating blood regularly can reduce the amount of PFAS in your blood. This doesn't solve the problem of the stuff being everywhere but it's good to know you can remove it from your body over time.

I don’t fuck with ANY straw that ain’t metal

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Scientists in Belgium recently tested dozens of straws from supermarkets, retail stores and fast-food restaurants in the country, and found that the majority contained PFAS — a family of synthetic chemicals used in the manufacture of consumer products because they can resist stains, grease and water.

Thimo Groffen, an author of the new study and environmental scientist at the University of Antwerp, said it’s not clear whether the manufacturers of the straws he analyzed are intentionally adding PFAS as a waterproof coating.

Graham Peaslee, who studies PFAS at the University of Notre Dame and was not involved in the new research, said it's possible manufacturers aren't testing for the chemicals in their own products.

Keith Vorst, director of the Polymer and Food Protection Consortium at Iowa State University, said some of the straws in the study exceeded the proposed EPA concentrations for water.

Various states, including California, Colorado, New York and Oregon, have banned plastic straws from food establishments in the last five years, and chains like Starbucks have phased them out.

The main reason is that the straws generally can't be recycled, so they wind up in landfills, get burned in incinerators or become litter that contaminates oceans, rivers, lakes and streams.

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