Drinking Straws

It's the straws that are getting to me. Good thing I haven't given up alcohol for Lent as the few times I've had non-alcoholic drinks in a pub they have come plastic straws. Each time I think 'I must remember next time to ask for no straw' but then by the time the next time comes I forget.

Why do pubs do this? And indeed when did they start doing it? For drinks in glasses? I remember as a child being given a bottle of something soft and fizzy and a a straw to drink whilst my brother and I sat outside in the garden, on the step or in a drab, empty side room (children were most definitely not allowed in pubs then). But I don't think any drink that was actually poured got a straw in it.

I do have some fond memories of straws. My mother kept an enormous box of them, paper ones, and for special treats we were allowed to have one to drink with. They were most definitely rationed. In fact so strong is my brother's memory of not being able to have a straw, and sense of being cheated out of something, that he is deliberately giving his small son straws on at random meal times rather than only on special occaions.

Then as what would probably now be called a tweenie, there were the coloured spiral ones that you got with drinks in Bernie Inns. We used to go there occasionally for lunch with a friend of mine and her mother as her father worked for the company that owned them and they got a discount. And we always ordered fancy drinks just for the fancy straws and cocketail umbrellas. And you could KEEP THE STRAWS. Such joy.

And I remember buying for my mother when she was ill with cancer a special long handled silver teaspoon, where the spoon handle was actually a silver straw. I figured it might make intake of fluids a bit more fun.

So straws can be special. But what a waste to have something you don't really need, only use once for a few minutes and then lies around in landfill for decades or longer. How did straws become so prevalent?

A bit of googling reveals that straw use actually goes back a long way. Almost definitely ancient peoples used actual straws., But then in 1888 Marvin Stone patented a process for manufacturing spiral-wound tubes. And the modern drinking straw was born. There's a great little article with pictures of the early patents here. Plastic straws became more popular in paper with the developments in plastic from the 1950's onwards. And if you'd ever wondered how plastic straws were made, the answer is extrusione.

Sadly (ed. really? sadly?), I can't seem to find any data for the number of plastic straws used and thrown away each week.