The bioplastic is more durable than paper straws—but bioplastics aren't necessarily the way to combat our waste problem.
To create the straws, researchers led by Dickens O. Agumba from Inha Univeristy in Korea combined potato starch and lignin—a polymer found in the walls of plant cells—along with polyvinyl alcohol to form a slurry. Agumba and his colleagues then spread the slurry on a glass surface to dry before rolling it into a straw shape using a Teflon rod and curing it in an oven. The sheet was able to seal itself at the edges to form the straw.
Traditional plastic straws are just the tip of the iceberg of the world’s burgeoning plastic problem; anything we can invent to ease ourselves off our addiction to plastic is, arguably, a good thing. Yet we all know the annoying feeling of a paper straw dissolving within five minutes of putting it into an iced coffee.
Finding a way to create a straw less harmful to the environment that’s not made out of oil and gas—and that doesn’t go soggy—could be a real game-changer.“The functionality of the straws and films surpassed paper and plastic straws, making them quintessential candidates for all-natural sustainable development,” Agumba and his collaborators wrote in theirIn testing the bioplastic straws, the team found that they remained rigid in hot water for up to 24 hours.
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