Imagine a world without drinking straws: Is it possible to drink a milkshake without a straw? How can you successfully drink juice from a cardboard box? How many soft drinks would be poured on you in the dark cinema without straws? I think we can all agree that straws have changed our lives for the better enough to be worthy of their own holiday.
Drinking Straw Day is celebrated in honor of the invention of the straw that changed our lives forever.
It is known in history that the first use of drinking straws was made by the Sumerians, thousands of years before BC, who drank beer with them, which at that time contained many solid by-products as a result of the fermentation process, which they wanted to filter.
Thousands of years later, in the 1800s, rye grass straw became popular because it was cheap and soft. Unfortunately, this straw also tended to turn into a liquid porridge itself inside the drink.
One day, while drinking mint water with ice, inventor Marvin Stone was annoyed that the drink got the taste of rye from his straw, and thought of a new way to create paper straws.
In those days Stone was engaged in the production of paper holders for cigarettes and he thought of using the idea for drinking as well. He formed paper tubes by tying pieces of paper around the pencil and gluing them together and then sliding the pencil out. So that the straw would not be wet and soft while drinking he tried waterproof types of paper. After many attempts Stone decided that the ideal straw would be 21.6 inches long, and the width at which lemon seeds would not be able to pass through it.
On January 3, 1888 Marvin Stone registered the patent and later also manufactured machines for making paper drinking straws with wax that would not dissolve in the bourbon drink he loved to drink.
If you want to celebrate the day of the invention of the drinking straw, you can do so by making a straw yourself from paper, using a pencil, drinking and discovering that it has no taste of rye and telling Marvin Stone well on his invention, which we take for granted but is actually ingenious in its simplicity.
Nowadays plastic straw has lost its popularity.
Today there are many people who oppose the use of drinking straws. The average duration of use of a plastic straw is about two minutes, but its lifespan is an eternity and the damage it causes to the environment is immense. Plastic is a non-perishable material and the list of environmental disasters it causes on land, in the air and at sea is endless. Scientists estimate that about 12 million tons of plastic reach the sea each year and they predict that by 2050 the weight of plastic in the sea will be greater than the weight of the animals that live in it.
As a replacement for the plastic straw, reusable bamboo or metal straw can be used.
