📢 Spend your own metal straw, please!

#Say No to Straws 🥤

McDonald has started to ban the usage of straw in Malaysia from Aug 1, 2018. Same like the #Say No to Plastic Bags campaign in 2009. Penang is the first state in Malaysia to promote this campaign. The McDonald branches in Penang have put up signs that remind the customers of the banning of straws around one month before the campaign launch, based on the Says, a Malaysia’s social news network.

The Star said Malaysians used roughly 31 million plastic straws daily. Then, what will happen to these straws? You might answer “to the landfill”. So, as we know, one straw will take up to 200 years to decompose. Try to imagine 31 million per day in the landfill. It will be a disaster! Although plastic straws are just a portion of the waste in landfill, this will not affect the people’s effort to reduce the usage of plastic straws.

In Malay we said: “Sedikit-sedikit, lama-lama jadi bukit,” which means the accumulation of little things will slowly become an anonymous amount. If people keep saying that plastic straws are just a little thing. Day after day, the single-use plastic straws can fill up a mountain of land.

 

 

According to Malaymail, the government stated the ban of plastic straws effective 2020 is targeted at traders and operators of food outlets with licence, and not at the public. Even though it said to target the food outlets traders and operators, it has actually brought a great effort on reducing the usage of plastic straws. This is because people normally use the straws when eating outside. Thus, people may buy plastic straws to use in home. The overall usage of plastic straws will be decreased in my opinion.

An exemption is, the government said, given to the handicapped and sick who need straws and plastic items in their daily lives. Therefore, those who ‘really’ need plastic straws will not need to worry.

Are you one of those who has actual needs towards plastic straws? Think twice before you take one.

 

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#Buy Own Metal Straw

Since we need to avoid using plastic straws, how are we going to drink some beverages?

At here, public recommends the metal straws. This doesn’t mean we don’t have other choice but the metal straws are recommended to beginner. Other choices are glass straw, bamboo straw, silicon straw etc.

 

“Old habits die hard and creating new ones is a pain”

Melissa, who is a writer and editor at Pinkoi.

 

Stainless steel is the most durable material that has oxidation and corrosion resistance ability. There are two choices stated in Pinkoi website.

First, a 304 food grade stainless steel straw is safe and affordable to drink out of. However, it’s not as resistant to heat and scratches along with the sulfuric and fatty acids from food and drinks when compared to the safer, more expensive 316L medical grade stainless steel straw. Especially when you might eat and drink at the same time.

About the metal straws, some people might say that it is not hygienic. This is a wrong concept. For your information, the usage of metal straws is the same with spoons and forks. The only thing is we must clean the interior of metal straw carefully with suitable cleaner brush so that the dirt will not last after drinking beverages.

If you’re interested to the content today, please take a look on the next post about polystyrene dining box.