How long does it take for straws to decompose?
Straws can take from 30 days to thousands of years to decompose. The vast differences depend on how biodegradable their materials are. There are many eco-friendly alternatives, and opting for one means you can make an easy and meaningful switch for the environment.
Plastic straws – 200 years
Plastic straws take 200 years to decompose. This means that all the plastic straws ever produced and discarded are still on Earth. Moreover, because of their small size and weight, straws resemble the food many wildlife eat, causing them to suffer from indigestion, choking, and entanglement.
Many countries, including EU countries, the UK, Canada, and China, have banned single-use plastic straws. In Australia, three states – South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland – have passed laws to ban plastic straws, among other single-use plastics.
See below for the many alternatives to plastic straws.
Stainless steel straws – 50 years
Stainless steel straws take around 50 years to decompose, but they are highly reusable and durable in hot and cold drinks. However, avoid coated metal; the coat may react to temperature and leach toxic chemicals into your drinks.
However, steel or metal straws tend to have sharp edges that may cut into the soft skin around your mouth and gum. In addition, as a challenging and pretty small object often fixed into place by a bottle mouth or a lid, they may become a hazard around small children or anyone not used to using a hard straw.
Therefore, practice caution when using stainless steel straws. They should be stored away when not in use.
Glass straws – one million years
Despite the typical image of glass being fragile, glass is an enduring material in terms of decomposition. The earliest glass item – a brown glass bead from the Indus Valley – dates back to 1700 BCE. Glass can take more than a million years to decompose if it is buried in a landfill with little exposure to oxygen. After several thousand years in nature, glass degrades into tiny sand particles.
Glass straws come in some standard sizes and shapes and can be adequately washed with a straw cleaning brush and reused endless times. The downside is that glass straws are heavy and thick so they would take up more space and weight in shipping and storage.
Bamboo straws – 45 to 180 days
Bamboo takes a long time to compost at home, but in an industrial composting facility, it can break down in less than 5 months.
Bamboo straws are safe for hot and cold drinks and not as hazardous as metal straws, so they offer a great alternative to paper straws.
Silicone straws – 50 to 500 years
Silicone is not biodegradable as a mix between natural materials and synthetic, non-renewable oils and gases. Depending on the temperature, light, and oxygen exposure, silicone straws may take decades to break down.
On the other hand, silicone straws have stable chemical compositions, so they do not leach chemicals into your drinks. As a durable material, silicone is supposed to last 10 to 20 years of use and proper cleaning. Silicone is also recyclable, but only in facilities with the right capacity.
Paper straws – 2 to 6 weeks
Paper straws take about a month to break down in landfills. Depending on the environmental conditions, paper exposed to oxygen will decompose faster than paper buried in a landfill with no to little oxygen.
To be truly eco-friendly, paper straws must be made from recyclable paper, not fresh wood pulp from cutting down trees.
However, paper straws can get soggy fast, so sugarcane or grass straws are better alternatives.
Sugarcane straws – 30 to 90 days
Made from a byproduct of sugarcane called bagasse, sugarcane straws are the perfect biodegradable choice. Sugarcane bagasse decomposes in your home compost bin in less than 2 months and even faster in an industrial composting facility.
Grass straws – 1 to 3 months
The grass is a highly biodegradable and compostable material. Grass straws can break down entirely in 1 to 3 months in the compost, sometimes as short as 1 to 3 weeks.
Sugarcane and grass straws – a harmonious blend of practicality and biodegradability
Natural materials, grass, and sugarcane straws create highly composted and biodegradable products. These straws can decompose in less than 3 months, either at home or in an industrial facility, and showcase a brilliant marriage between functionality and eco-friendliness. Moreover, they are durable and water resistant, making them particularly suitable for cold beverages.
In addition to their practical attributes, these straws also possess a unique aesthetic appeal. With their earthy colors, they can seamlessly blend into the decor of restaurants and cafes renowned for their environmental commitment.
