These Biodegradable Straws Are Made From Wild Grass

If you can take a few minutes out of your day to look up the statistics on how much plastic we dump into our oceans everyday, you probably wouldn’t want to use one-time plastic ever again.

Some 8 million tons of plastic find their way into the oceans daily, and what constitutes a huge part of this waste are plastic straws. But, that’s not even the worst part.

What’s worse is that, because these plastics are usually not biodegradable, they float around for months if not years, and are often mistaken by aquatic creatures for food, causing injury and sometimes, even death.

And even when these plastics do begin to decompose, they do even more harm to the environment by releasing harmful toxins.

Thus, every bit of help counts.

Tran Minh Tien, a Vietnamese man, is one of the individuals who’s trying to change the world, one plastic straw at a time.

Using Lepironia articulata, a type of grass that’s very common around the Mekong Delta area in Vietnam, Tran Min Tien creates completely sustainable and eco-friendly drinking straws that are biodegradable and free from any sort of preservatives, as well as chemicals.

The straws could reportedly be used once in restaurants, and could be used multiple times for home use. It’s also rather affordable, selling for only 4.3 cents per dried straw and about 2.6 cents per fresh straw.

Scroll down below to see the entire process for yourself.