Coffee shop milk tea shop all despise paper straw to stop production?!

The three joys of young people: drinking coffee, drinking milk tea, drinking cola!

How to "contain" the happiness of young people?

"give them a paper straw."

Yes, this paper straw, born with an "environmental halo", has swept into the major restaurants and occupied the straw frame of the restaurant for more than a year. However, the environmental protection of paper straw is not only biodegradable, it can also be degraded in the mouth. Therefore, the hot search for paper straws is not because of its environmental protection, but because of its "anti-human" performance.

"Paper straws are really environmentally friendly, and they degrade in my mouth." in May last year, a question about paper straws caused heated discussion. Many netizens said, "Sorry, it's not that I don't support environmental protection, but that I really can't suck it!" "Paper straws are not necessarily environmentally friendly! It took me three straws to finish a cup of coffee. "some straws broke up after drinking."

With more and more people's bad reviews, paper straws were finally forced out of the market, followed by a biodegradable straw called PLA dominated the mainstream.

PLA straw, also known as polylactic acid straw, takes starch extracted from corn, wheat, cassava and other plants as raw materials and can be fully biodegradable. It is suitable for temperatures ranging from minus 10 ℃ to 70 ℃, and can satisfy both hot and cold drinks. Most consumers also prefer this kind of polylactic acid straw to paper straws. The demand for PLA straws is expanding rapidly, and the other side is naturally the loneliness of paper straws.

According to a report by CCTV Finance Network on March 20, many manufacturers of paper straws have gradually entered the phase of suspension of production. The production team leader of a paper products company in Zhejiang said that when the demand for paper straws was at its highest, 24 machines produced at least 80, 000 per day and up to 140000. Now there are only 5 in operation every day, and the daily production is no more than 500000. The head of the paper products company said that over the past year or so, from big ups and downs, this roller coaster experience is still being digested so far, and the machines are not easy to sell.

One of the reasons for the decline in paper straw production is the poor experience of consumers, and the second is the reduction in the export volume of the epidemic, and in foreign countries, the experience of paper straws to consumers is also average, so many countries have also begun to import PLA straws.

Many researchers at home and abroad have said: paper straws are not so environmentally friendly! One is that paper straws are made of composite materials such as "paper + plastic coating", which are not as easy to degrade as you think. Second, the easy dispersion of paper straws requires manufacturers to keep thickening the straws. As a result, a large number of paper straws are too thick to be recycled.

Is the PLA straw really environmentally friendly? Compared with paper straws, it does achieve real natural degradation, but the downside is the short shelf life of the habit. After a year of storage, the performance of the PLA straw will be greatly reduced, and it will be crushed with a twist of the hand (you can see that it is really easy to degrade). Many manufacturers of PLA straws dare not produce too much storage, which invisibly increases the cost of PLA straws.

The cost of plastic straw, paper straw and PLA straw is 0.05,0.06,0.07,0.13 and 0.12-0.13 yuan, respectively. The increase in cost also urges businesses to reuse plastic straws. However, Weng Yunxuan, secretary general of the degradable Plastics Professional Committee of the China Plastics processing Industry Association, said that in 2020, the domestic production capacity of polylactic acid was only about 60, 000 tons, and now the production capacity of polylactic acid is already 150000 tons. The price of polylactic acid will also come down. This also means that PLA straws may be the next new trend for environmentally friendly tableware.

A few days ago, the coffee workshop also reported that there is now a straw made of coconut. Chinese Academician Yu Shuhong's research team developed an "edible" bacterial cellulose-based straw with excellent performance through the strategy of biosynthesis of bacterial cellulose and compounding with seaweed extract sodium alginate. The bacterial cellulose-based straw almost disappeared after being buried in the soil for 45 days and could be fully integrated into the soil after 60 days.

How's the coconut straw? Although the material is edible, it is not delicious, it can only be said to be a safe and edible straw. The strength, modulus and toughness of this straw are more than twice that of paper straws. The cost of each straw may be about the same as that of PLA straws, but the storage time is longer.

In fact, no matter what kind of straw, even if it can degrade naturally, it is a disposable product. If you really want to be environmentally friendly, start with reducing the use of disposable products.

Photo Source: online CCTV Finance and Economics

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