Millions of paper straws are produced in Tanzania to help muscle plastic straws out of drinks throughout the country.
Lay them end-to-end and they would reach the space station, guesses manufacturer Irene Sporah Njau.
She's the owner of Rapos Tanzania, a business that backs an anti-plastic stance by offering paper alternatives.
RAPOS company is making a big push to get business owner to stop using plastic straws by the end of 2023, and Irene Sporah is offering a discounted deal to help them break the plastic habit.
It's estimated that Tanzania use over 100 million plastic straws a year. The straws are an environmental nightmare because they are usually made from materials like polypropylene and polystyrene, which can take hundreds of years to degrade.
Moving back to paper straws is actually going back to the original modern straw, which was invented in the 1880s in the United States. Much cheaper plastic straws took over from the 1970s.
Cost is the big issue, She said.
Single-use plastic straws cost about half a cent, while biodegradable paper straws cost 4 to 5 cents each.
Irene Sporah says the answer is to combine paper straws with a "straws on request" policy. That can lead to a 70 per cent drop in straw use, and the savings go towards the environmentally better paper straws.
"A lot of paper straws are not very good quality and when we started selling paper straws there was a bad image around them," she says.
RAPOS paper straws are thicker and have been tested to last 20 times as long as other ones. So you can use them properly without worrying about them falling apart."
One other plus is we have all sizes in different colours.
As for cost, she says comparisons are unfair because the cost of environmental damage isn't taken into account with plastic straws.
She says paper straws are a way restaurants and cafes can openly show customers they are trying to be good to the environment.
Irene Sporah says over 500 hotel owners across the country have been challenged to go plastic straw-free by the end of the year.
She admits it's a big ask, but with the availability of paper straws, it could be possible.
Irene Sporah says most Hotel, Restaurant, Bar, Coffee are showing good support for dropping plastic straws.
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| Irene Sporah Njau. |
By far the biggest users of plastic straws are the corporate fast food businesses and they are not asy to reach at once. But Irene Sporah says that's no excuse.
"That we won't be plastic straw-free until they (fast food, Mama Ntilie) start doing it is not a good enough reason for us not to start.
"Starting is our best course of action. Other countries are doing a better job than us at delivering plastic-free alternatives and just being plastic free.
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