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How It’s Made
How It’s Made
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How a Guatemalan town tackled its plastic problem
How a Guatemalan town tackled its plastic problem

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How a Guatemalan town tackled its plastic problem

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How a Guatemalan town tackled its plastic problem

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Vietnamese Man Makes Biodegradable Straws From Wild Grass to Solve World’s Plastic Problem

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Vietnamese Man Makes Biodegradable Straws From Wild Grass to Solve World’s Plastic Problem

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Each year, there is a staggering 8 million tons of plastic finding its way into our oceans. Among these are the plastic straws that are used daily. The United States alone uses and discards about 500 million plastic straws each day, and this impacts our Earth in a huge way.

Most plastics are made from crude oil and are not biodegradable. Marine life can mistakenly eat them thinking they are food, which can then get lodged somewhere in their system, causing injury or death. Like the turtle in this video, imagine the pain it suffered after having a straw stuck in its nostril.

In addition, when plastic straws begin to decompose, they release harmful toxins such as BPA that pollute our oceans.

Thus, in order to eliminate the scourge of plastic straws, groups such as Lonely Whale, Last Plastic Straw, Straw Free, and Be Straw Free have sprung up. In addition, many other great alternatives for plastic straws have also been introduced, such as metal straws and rice straws.

An innovation by a Vietnamese man named Tran Minh Tien has shown how a certain type of grass named Lepironia articulata that is prolific around the Mekong Delta in Vietnam is converted into drinking straws.

These straws do not contain any chemicals and preservatives. And most importantly, they are biodegradable.

In a video posted on Facebook, Tran Minh Tien, the owner of Ong Hut Co., explains the entire process of making the grass into straws.

First, they collect the hollow stems of grass, which are washed and then cut into 20-centimeter lengths. The tubes are then cleaned on the inside using a metal rod.

After another round of washing, the straws are bundled together and finally wrapped in banana leaves. Ingenious!

xỏ lá ba que ở Cửa hàng 3TÔm gánh lá từ Nam ra Bắc, người nông dân đã tìm được câu trả lời: "Tại sao tôi không thong...

Posted by Tien Tran on Monday, December 3, 2018

The straws come in two versions: one fresh and another dried.

The fresh ones can be stored in the refrigerator for two weeks, or kept in room temperature for a week. Meanwhile, the dried ones are laid out in the sun for about 2-3 days, then baked in an oven. These last much longer, up to six months in room temperature.

These straws can be used only once in restaurants and can be reused multiple times at home.

A dried straw costs about 4.3 cents while a fresh one costs about 2.6 cents.

The video posted on Facebook has garnered over 2.1 million views and has been shared over 35,000 times.

Social media users have praised the efforts of this youngster.

One user wrote, "One step closer to a plastic free world👍 keep up the good work."

Another commented, "need to grow this on a mass scale. no more plastic straws."

"This is a great, sustainable straw. I love it," a third one enthused.

A fourth one wrote, "Thanks to help save the planet, no more plastic."

The company has also specified how to use these straws on their website.

Before using the straw, one can soak it in either water, soapnut, salt water, or even boiled water. They also request that after one uses a straw, it should be thrown in a compost bin.

These grass straws, which have a natural smell, can only be purchased in Vietnam at the moment. Perhaps the rest of the world will get to experience them in the near future.
Watch the video:

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Vietnamese Man Makes Biodegradable Straws From Wild Grass to Solve World's Plastic Problem

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Each year, there is a staggering 8 million tons of plastic finding its way into our oceans. Among these are the plastic straws that are used daily. The United States alone uses and discards about 500 million plastic straws each day, and this impacts our Earth in a huge way.

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Thailand Supermarket Ditches Plastic Packaging For Banana Leaves

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Thailand Supermarket Ditches Plastic Packaging For Banana Leaves

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A Thailand supermarket came up with a genius way to reduce plastic packaging: wrap its produce in banana leaves instead.

The banana leaf packaging comes from the Rimping supermarket in Chiangmai, Thailand. A real estate company in Chiang Mai, Perfect Homes, posted photos of the banana leaf packaging to their Facebook page and it quickly gained widespread attention.

Of the 9 billion tonnes of plastic ever produced, only 9% has been recycled. This, along with projections of rapidly increased plastic manufacturing, has led to global attention to single-use plastics.

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that by 2050 there will be 12 billion tonnes of plastic in landfills, the environment, and oceans. Of this waste, cigarette butts, plastic drinking bottles, food wrappers, and plastic grocery bags are the biggest contributors.

The use of banana leaves instead of plastic for packaging vegetables is a great way to reduce single-use plastic. While it looks like they use some plastic for adhering the label, this method significantly reduces the amount of plastic required. They are simply wrapped in a banana leaf and secured using a flexible piece of bamboo. Banana leaves are a great alternative to plastic as the leaf is large, thick and supple enough to be folded.

One thing to consider is the relative cost of plastic versus banana leaves. In tropical locations, banana leaves are readily available locally and could be acquired for free depending on the quantity needed. In more temperate locations the use of banana leaves could be significantly more expensive than plastic. However, using local biodegradable products could be a good alternative in locations where bananas don't grow.

The use of banana leaves to wrap food in has a long history. In some tropical regions of Mexico, tamales are wrapped in banana leaves. Hawaiians use banana leaves during pig roasts to protect the pig from the hot lava rocks. They are also used to wrap sticky rice in southeast Asia.

I am a geologist passionate about sharing Earth's intricacies with you. I received my PhD from Duke University where I studied the geology and climate of the Amazon. I a...

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Thailand Supermarket Ditches Plastic Packaging For Banana Leaves

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A Thailand supermarket came up with a genius way to reduce plastic packaging: wrap its produce in banana leaves instead. The banana leaf packaging comes from the Rimping supermarket in Chiangmai, Thailand. A real estate company in Chiang Mai, Perfect Homes, posted photos of the banana leaf packaging to their Facebook page and it quickly gained widespread attention.

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Since the dawn of history, humankind has endeavoured to develop materials offering benefits not found in natural materials. The development of plastics started with the use of natural materials that had intrinsic plastic properties, such as shellac and chewing gum. The next step in the evolution of plastics involved the chemical modification of natural materials such as rubber, nitrocellulose, collagen and galalite. Finally, the wide range of completely synthetic materials that we would recognise as modern plastics started to be developed around 100 years ago:

One of the earliest examples was invented by Alexander Parkes in 1855, who named his invention Parkesine. We know it today as celluloid.

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was first polymerised between 1838-1872.

A key breakthrough came in 1907, when Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland created Bakelite, the first real synthetic, mass-produced plastic.

Since Baekeland's creation, many new plastics have been realised and developed, offering a huge range of desirable properties, and you will find them in every home, office, factory and vehicle. We can't predict what lies in store over the next hundred years, but we are confident in predicting that, for plastics, the sky's the limit!
Have a look at some of the main discoveries of the past in the British Plastics Federation (BPF) video.

(Source: BPF)

A full plastics timeline can be found on www.bpf.co.uk

Contact us for more information
Contact us for more information about plastics and the activities of PlasticsEurope.

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Since the dawn of history, humankind has endeavoured to develop materials offering benefits not found in natural materials. The development of plastics started with the use of natural materials that had intrinsic plastic properties, such as shellac and chewing gum.

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Is Not What You Think It Is | The Swim

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Lego trees, bushes and leaves will now be made from an eco-friendly, sugar-based plastic.

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reducing waste

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This informative book for young students provides them with ideas they can employ to reduce waste.vIt is part of a timely series introducing them to sustainable lifestyles, and encouraging them to become active and environmentally responsible citizens. They can look at their own actions and put into practise simple, practical strategies that help them become more sustainable at school and home.