Plastic straws are increasingly being avoided for both health and environmental reasons, but the alternatives all have their downsides – until now
Technology
17 January 2022
Paper straws are not ideal Benjamin John/Alamy
When it comes to drinking with a straw, there is no perfect option – plastic straws can release microplastics into your beverage, paper straws buckle and bend when they get wet and metal straws can damage your teeth. Now there is a solution: edible straws made by bacteria.
Qing-Fang Guan at the University of Science and Technology of China and his colleagues made straws out of bacterial cellulose, which is similar to the plant-based cellulose used to make paper but with a closer-knit molecular structure. It …