Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the Himalayas for the past 10 years, I expect you’ve come across paper drinking straws. They are meant to be the environmentally sound alternative to plastic straws. As it turns out, most of them are not good for the environment, and not good for human beings.
Whilst plastic straws take approximately 200 years to decompose [1]WWF – The Lifecycle Of Plastics, PFAS hang around in the environment pretty much forever.
Forever Chemicals
PFAS, or Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, are a group of synthetic chemicals known for their unique properties in repelling water, grease, and other substances. PFAS are not known to occur naturally, meaning they are a totally unique chemical introduced to Earth by humans. These chemicals are widely used in various products such as non-stick cookware, food packaging, stain-resistant fabrics, firefighting foams, and more. PFAS are highly stable, meaning they do not easily break down in the environment or in the human body, earning them the nickname ‘forever chemicals.’ Due to their persistence and potential health and environmental risks, there is growing concern and scrutiny surrounding the presence and impact of PFAS in our daily lives.
PFAS have been detected in various environments, from the Arctic ice to the Amazon rainforest [2]Science Focus – Amazon Rainforest. These chemicals can enter the human body through food and drink packaging, leading to potential health issues such as liver and kidney diseases [3]Association of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance exposure with fatty liver disease risk in US adults and impacting wildlife as well.
PFAS in US straws
In 2021, Alina Timshina and her team conducted an important study that investigated the presence of PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) in plastic, paper, and plant-based straws sourced from the USA. Their research revealed that paper and plant-based straws contain PFAS.
The study’s findings suggest that paper and plant-based straws have significant levels of PFAS, with plastic straws having lower concentrations. As one would expect, stainless steel straws were found to be free of PFAS, making them the safest alternative.
PFAS in EU straws
Shortly after the EU implemented a ban on single-use plastics, US researchers discovered concerning levels of ‘forever chemicals’ known as PFAS in plant-based paper straws. There are worries that consuming liquids through these straws could lead to the ingestion of PFAS, although the exact amounts remain unknown. While short-term ingestion may not pose immediate health risks, long-term exposure to significant quantities of PFAS can be harmful, as these chemicals do not easily break down and can accumulate in humans, animals, and the environment.
Inspired by this research, a team of Belgian scientists decided to investigate the presence of PFAS in plant-based straws, a topic that had not been studied in Europe before. They tested 39 different brands of straws made from various materials such as bamboo, glass, stainless steel, plastic, and paper for 29 different PFAS compounds.
The researchers intentionally gathered a diverse selection of straws from the Belgian market, aiming to cover a wide range of materials, sources, and stores. This led to the testing of 20 paper straws, five glass straws, five bamboo straws, five stainless steel straws, and four plastic straws to conduct an extensive analysis.
Numerous paper straws that were tested were found to contain PFAS. In fact, 69% of the brands tested had detectable levels of PFAS, with a total of eighteen different types identified. The paper straws were expected to have higher levels of PFAS due to the water-repellent nature of paper, which can be achieved by adding PFAS during manufacturing or from contaminated raw materials in the supply chain.
Unsurprisingly, 90% of paper straws had PFAS, along with 80% of bamboo straw brands, 75% of plastic brands, and 40% of glass straw brands. Steel straws, on the other hand, had no detectable PFAS. The banned chemical PFOA was the most commonly found PFAS, along with ‘ultra-short chain’ PFAS like TFA and TMAS that are highly soluble and could potentially leach into drinks from the straws.
The PFAS Source?
Although the exact method of PFAS addition to the straws is unknown, researchers suspect that some may have been used in water-repellent coatings.
I’d be inclined to suspect that the majority of the PFAS was added intentionally for this purpose. The biggest down-side of paper straws is that they actually don’t handle liquids well, so they need to be waterproofed. PFAS is the cheapest way to achieve that.
It is, however, worth noting that PFAS chemicals can be unintentionally introduced into a product through the machinery it is made with. For example, the majority of toilet papers tested in another recent study were found to contain PFAS. It it is believed this gets into the paper from the paper production machinary. It is, for instance, a component of the lubricants used in these machines.
Better Alternatives
From my perspective, the best alternative is to just not use straws. Personally, I’ve managed to live my entire adult life without needing to drink through straws. I’ve never purchased straws, as they make little sense to me. Yes, on a numerous occasions, I’ve received a drink with a straw I didn’t actually want. At which point I usually remove it (and the plastic lid, if there is one), and just drink my beverage without all these commercial add-ons. The idea of drinking through a toxic plastic tube doesn’t invoke my enthusiasm. For me straws have always (at least since my early teens, when I started thinking about such matters) seemed like a wasteful and pointless concept from the get-go. Straws suck, and I am a sucker if I feel they are a necessity of life. They are Just another way for some corporation to make money off of my thirst. Thankfully my mother wasn’t into wasteful products like straws, so I barely even sucked on them as a kid either.
For those of us who simply can’t imagine drinking without sucking through a straw, stainless steel is entirely non-toxic. It takes a lot of energy to produce, but at least you could (in theory) buy and use one steel straw for the rest of your life. Although you’ll need to have it on you pretty much any time you leave the house, just in case you grab a drink whilst out and about. It will also need washing with a special little straw cleaning brush. Seems like a tedious hassle to me. Keeping a stainless straw stashed in the car might be the way to go, since most people drive to where they buy a drink, and drinking with a straw is perhaps most justifiable in a car, especially when kids are doing the slurping. There’s a plethora of stainless steel straws available online.
Reusable bamboo straws are another option. Keep in mind that the use-once bamboo fibre straws may contain PFAS again (since it’s just paper made from bamboo fibre). So you’ll need to get the reusable variety, as found here.
Otherwise, it seems the most non-toxic, harmless, and commercially viable straw material is PHA (or Polyhydroxyalkanoates) [4]PHA-Based Bioplastic: a Potential Alternative to Address Microplastic Pollution. You can learn all about PHA straws here. If you want a deep dive into the matter, this study is a good place to take the plunge. Obviously, we can’t rely on drink sellers to be using PHA straws. At least not for now. So it’s still back to having to carry them when leaving the house, if there’s a chance you’ll be needing a straw.
Closing thoughts
As is often the case, the solutions we invent to solve the problems we’ve previously created often result in another set of problems. Sometimes these new problems are worse than those we were attempting to solve. From my perspective, this is a consequence of our disconnect from nature and natural intelligence. This disconnect is a result, in part, of the reductionistic and materialistic approach to life and to science (research).
Most of our “scientists” (like most modern humans) have lost all sense of the wholeness of Life. In reality, Life is only living when in its natural state of unified wholeness. Once we start to break the form side of Life into smaller and smaller separate units, the life-form we are studying is no longer living. We kill it in order to “understand” it.
Even more important is that Life has two sides: the form side of Life and the formless side of Life. Materialism has us almost entirely focused on the form side of life. Modern humans are so oblivious to the formless side of Life that they have forgotten it exists, and fail to recognize how ancestors were profoundly aware of the formless side of life. In looking back on history, we tend to project onto our ancient ancestors our modern (materialistic) perspective, writing off accounts of otherworldly beings, angels, Gods, spiritual dimensions, etc., as fiction.
Footnotes & References
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