McDonald's will replace plastic straws with paper ones in UK and Ireland outlets - Sensationalist Headlines

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44492352 While definitely a good news, it doesn't solve the issue that the largest pollutants are coming from China and South East Asia. There's zero recycling culture here.

Am I being dumb or aren't they just going to be soaked in soda if they're made out of paper?

Should be everywhere

Thicker papers with some sort of inner lining should be fine

There's thousands of ways to construct things out of paper. It's not like toiler paper instantly turns into a wet mess mid-wipe, and that's made out of paper.

I wonder if they are going to do anything about the plastic lids on these drinks as well, as they are another example of wasteful one use plastic.

If you let them sit for hours probably i know a few places around me that use them. They aren’t bad based on the times I used them. I’m pretty sure you can’t use them with some alcoholic drinks though because they just go mushy like instantly

Paper with some nontoxic wax coating would hold up pretty well. Even without the wax, paper is pretty resilient when layered up. I broke my funnel one changing my car's oil so I just made one by twisting a few sheets of paper into a circle and taping it off.

The cup is already paper, I don't understand why people think that the straw will just melt immediately.

Because I'm not a smart man.

I never understood why they don't make the lids from the same paper.

They last for long enough. They've got a kind of waxy coating. They have them at zoos and at disney world so that if animals end up eating them they don't choke or something

Dude, the cups are basically made out of paper. A lot of drinks are sold in paper containers. Thick, wax lined paper is very durable and lasts a long time. Hell, look at the Steve MRE Info guy, he sees paper that's 70 years old that's held up to all kinds of shit.

As long as you don't let the drink sit for more than a day the McDonalds paper cups hold up fine so I don't see paper straws being an issue. Medium sodas and below use paper while large sodas uses plastic. I'm sometimes lazy and if I forget to empy a medium soda then I get a syrupy mess on the table from the soda leaking out which isn't fun to clean but other than that the cups are fine.

well, at least we can preserve our own environments.... they can wallow in their own filth if they want, we'll show them the superior way

The cups have been made of paper for ages.

Their filth is being eaten by your seafood.

Every paper straw I've tried turns in to a soggy piece of shit, it isn't that liquid that's the issue it's the heat and possibly the saliva in your mouth that fucks it up. Basically it's a waste of time, disposable plastic items are only the tip of the iceberg, even a simple thing like washing synthetic clothes releases tons of plastic fibers, what are they going to do, ban synthetic materials?, we're not getting plastic out the ocean for a very long time, better we put the effort in to biodegradable plastic research and development like reducing the cost of PLA rather than waste time and money on stupid bans.

If I had to guess that, and this is more of a manufacturing issue. You'd probably need to redesign the entire cup to use a paper lid tho TBH. Considering the cups are one-time use, why not just make the cup/lid 1 single unit that seals with some sort of quickly drying natural glue (glucose based ?)

I think it's the shape mainly, a cup is a very simple shape to cut and glue out of paper, a lid isn't

If you didn't require the lid to have a clipping mechanism and also hold tension well it would be a lot easier to manufacture.

Why don't they just use long pasta tubes?

just hollow out a mcdonalds fry

That'll teach you to think I'm the least bit competent. Wait, shit.

Deep fried potato straws, also edible

i dont eat seafood, it's forbidden in all religious books

What?

Served with a nice, tall, cool glass of ketchup.

You are a McFucking psychopath.

what do you think soda cups are made out of