History of Plastic Straws - How Did They Become So Popular?

This brief history of plastic straws looks at their early uses from ancient times to the modern-day. Today plastic straws are found in many kitchen cupboards or drawers. They are so popular that they are readily associated with most takeaway meals the world over. Increasing the environmental impact of plastic straws is an issue we should all know more about and act to change. Their time may be numbered among growing consumer concerns and plastic straw bans.

Here TRVST presents a little-potted history of the drinking straw, largely for fun and because it's interesting 🙂

The environmental impact of plastic straws is increasingly a global issue. You can take action by asking for non-plastic straws in restaurants and bars or choosing eco-friendly reusable straws, or even better, questioning if you need one at all.

Drinking straws in nature

Nature often inspires the best human inventions, and we can see the inspiration for the straw in insects. The proboscis is a long tubular part of the anatomy found in many insects. In nature, butterflies and moths use their proboscis to suck nutrition from flowers, fruit, and other food sources. Therefore Biologists at the Royal Society note that "the proboscis represents a key innovation [like a drinking straw] for exploiting a vast range of nutritional sources.2"

Proposcis Of A Butterfly With Flower
Nature often inspires human progress. Nature was there first and kicked off the history of the plastic straw. Insects use the proboscis to suck nectar from flowers in bloom. Photo Credit: Pixabay.

When were plastic straws invented?

The first notable usage of straws in history by humans

Humans, too, have had a long history with Straws. History captured one of the first noted human uses of straws around 2600 BC in a mural of the Sumerians.

The Sumerians were an ancient civilization populating what is now modern-day Southern Iraq. History tells us they were also one of the first civilizations to drink beer. To do so, they drank it out of clay jars using reed straws to suck up the alcoholic liquid below the layers of sediment that had formed on top of the brew.

Straws being used in the history of the ancient sumerians
The ancient Sumerians are seen here in an ancient plaque using straws for drinking from a clay pot of what was most likely beer. The history of plastic straws goes back a long way.

Straws in depictions of this ritual are long utensils. People sat around heavy clay pots of beer in the middle of a room, and the straws connected them to the alcohol contained within. Much like a communal gathering of the time and almost certainly a convivial social occasion. Similar to drinking beer today.

Straws elsewhere in history

A little later, the association with imbibement gets a little racier, as depicted on a Babylonian clay plaque from around 2000 BC. The plaque, shown at the Israel Museum8, depicts a woman and man engaged in a sexual act. We can see a woman leaning forward, drinking beer from a straw. And so our love affair, quite literally, with the straw began.

 History of Plastic Straws Terracotta plaque depicting a copulating couple drinking beer through a straw
Terracotta plaque depicting a copulating couple drinking beer from a straw. Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem


Patrick McGovern is a biomolecular archaeologist and researcher and the Penn Museum. His work "the history of Man, The Drinker" looks at our history with alcoholic drinks. He notes that we can observe similar methods for making and drinking cereal brews in Mesopotamian barley beer, Chinese rice wine, and American corn chica. The common thread?

A large open-mouthed jar, and then drink[ing] from the same vessel with a long straw1

Dried leaves of the yerba mate plant steeped in hot water brew Mate in South America. The result is a hot drink, a bit like tea. Traditionally, Mate is drunk from a hollow gourd through metal straws,

Mate is still popular today and the national drink of Argentina4. If you like, you can even buy metal Mate drinking straws online.

Reed Straws

Leaving behind the ancient chapter in the history of plastic straws, we move on to the more modern precursor, the reed straw. Rye straws made out of ryegrass became popular in the 1880s. Farmers already growing ryegrass as a crop for animal feed bleached, hand-cut, and sorted these straws. New cash crop in hand, they sold the reeds across markets in the US, and they became a popular side hustle of the time.

Charles Dickens played a key role in popularising reed straws across the Atlantic. With words as his craft, he narrated their benefit to a broader audience through storytelling.

The author of works including Oliver Twist and the Pickwick Papers famously traveled to the United States in 1842. It is said that New York greeted him with the grandest ball the city had ever seen on Valentine's.

At 30 years old, 300 guests celebrated the then-most famous author in the world in style. There were paintings in his honor, a bust of himself hanging over a balcony and an eagle soaring over the bust's head. All of which welcomed him into a world of American hospitality and drink.

Spreading the word

Dicken's experience of American hospitality introduced him to boozy tumblers full of ice, complete with reed straws. The straws provide easy access to the liquid. He later re-tells this experience in his 1884 novel, Martin Chuzzlewit.

In the book, Martin, the lead character, has a friend join him on a trip to the USA and serve him up a Sherry Cobbler.

“Martin took the glass with an astonished look; applied his lips to the reed; and cast up his eyes once in ecstasy. He paused no more until the goblet was drained to the last drop.”

Innovative, yes; however, there was a problem, Reed straws didn't hold their shape well and became soft and mushy if left in Sherry Cobblers. Or, for that matter, any other drink, for too long.

As we further tell the history of the plastic straw, this becomes the central problem to solve. Our story progresses with Human ingenuity seeking to create a more robust drinking utensil.

In 1870 Eugene Chapin of Missouri filed a patent for "Improvement in drinking-tubes for invalids." His invention was a rubber tube or other flexible tube securely attached to the drinking vessel with a clamp spring. This innovation allowed people to more easily access their fluids, presumably from a bed in the hospital.

A few years later, in 1879, William Brown of Connecticut filed a patent for a "Utensil for Mixing and Imbibing Liquids." Brown's invention was a "hollow-bodied tubular stem through which we can draw liquid." Cleverly this invention included a sieve at the bottom to prevent large particles from being drawn up into the straw. As a result, it also provided the added advantage of being able to "crush solid substances such as sugar."

Two early patents and their inventions ref the history of the plastic straw
Pages of two early patents filed relating to the history of plastic straws. On the left, we see Chapin's drinking tube for use by invalids, and on the right, Brown's utensil for mixing and imbibing liquids.

Soda Fountains

A bit later, American soda fountains played a key role in driving the popularity of the straw. Initially, we note, conceived as an attempt to replicate mineral waters that bubbled up from the earth. Soda Fountains quickly became popular and important social gathering points in American towns.

History of Plastic Straws - American Soda Fountain from 1925.
American soda fountains were popular gathering places. (Picture: Tampa, Florida circa 1925) Straws prevented the spread of disease at soda fountains. Photo: No known attribution.

First seen as early as 1806 in Connecticut, soda fountains really took off in the early 1900s as mechanical innovations, including refrigeration, allowed them to serve cold sweet carbonated drinks

To begin with, people typically shared a glass or metal cup to drink at soda fountains. Health concerns around cleanliness alongside the flu and polio epidemics caused concern about this communal way of drinking.

To avoid the spreading of germs, soda fountain drinkers used straws which improved the sanitary safety of shared tumblers3. For that reason, customers choose to drink their soda through straws by preference and default.

Paper Straws

The filing of a patent for the first paper straw happened in 1888, moving the history of the plastic straw on a few notches. The legend goes that American inventor Marvin Stone was drinking a mint julep, a tasty cocktail of bourbon and mint. An 18th-century version of the Sumerian's Reed Straws completed the serving of this ice-cold thirst-quenching drink on ice.

Naturally, Marvin's straw was also all about solving a problem, as is the case with most good inventions. The problem? His reed in his julep quickly became soggy and began to lose shape.

To solve this problem, the legend goes, he wrapped the paper around a pencil, which he glued together. As it set, he removed the pencil, and what emerged formed a prototype of the very first paper drinking straw. Stone defined the ideal straw as 8.5 inches long and with a diameter small enough to prevent lemon seeds from getting stuck, thereby reducing the flow of liquid.

He later combined his paper straw with a little wax to prevent it from going soggy. An experienced paper cigarette holder manufacturer, he used his knowledge to start mass-producing paper straws in 1906 in his cigarette factory. It's said Stone was making up to two million a day at his peak.

Bendy Straws

It took another 50 years after Stone invented the paper straw before Joseph Friedman came across another problem. The Smithsonian Institute talks of him watching his daughter struggling to easily reach her milkshake through a paper straw back in the 1930s.

Friedman, another clever inventor, took a screw and inserted it into the paper straw. Seeking to make the drink easier to get to, he wound cotton around the outside of the paper straw. This, in turn, created ridges in the paper. Removing the screw, the newly formed indents allowed the straw to bend easily. And the bendy straw was born.

In 1939 he created the Flex-straw Company, incorporated in California, to mass-produce plastic straws.

Hospitals used rigid glass plastic tubes at the time. In 1947 he sold his first bendy straw order to a hospital as a replacement. The outcome was that the bendy straw's first outing allowed patients in bed to more easily drink lying down. To really build the business, he involved his wife. Selling to restaurants came later with the resulting growth.

“arguably the most significant technological achievement of the twentieth century”

Michael Fabricant, British MP - a relative of Friedman's, talking about the invention of the bendy straw, according to Wikipedia.

Plastic Straws

Consumer plastics became a big thing after the second world war; as the war ended, the many factories churning out plastic to service the war machine needed to find new applications for their manufacturing lines and prowess7.

America experienced an economic boom following the war. As a result, consumers looked for new and innovative ways to spend their newly earned cash.

It's noteworthy that plastic straws, easy and cheaper to make, really took off alongside the huge growth of the fast-food industry, which served a need for Americans to socialize together and spend their increasing wealth.

To-go cups quickly became normal fare with burgers and fries. The plastic lids with crosshairs tore paper straws. Because of this design fault and now with a possible plastic alternative, fast food restaurants worldwide also began to serve soda and pop in disposable cups with plastic straws. It followed that plastic straws quickly became a ubiquitous part of everyday life.

On the wave of fast food

The rise of giants, including Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Milkshake bars, all also played a significant part in the history of the single-use plastic straw. So it came about that plastic straws accompanied each soda or frothy milkshake worldwide in these high-growth bastions of modern-day consumerism. Of course, naturally, the plastic industry happily complied, producing more and more of the things to serve this growing market.

McDonalds meal with paper cup and plastic straw
Plastic straws really took off in popularity alongside the growth of the American and Worldwide fast food industries. McDonald's meals almost always come with a paper cup of soda and a plastic straw. Photo Credit: Chaitanya on Pexels.

Unlike their paper or reed-based counterparts, plastic straws are durable. No matter how long they were left in the glass of liquid, plastic straws kept their shape.

The transparency provided a novelty factor. With candy stripes, crazy straws, jumbo straws, supersize suckers, and twists and turns all finding their moments, by the 1960s, plastic straws hit the mainstream and had more or less replaced their paper counterparts.

What is next in the history of the plastic straw?

The plastic straw, a simple hollow tube, is an invention of convenience. Straws helped us imbibe more conveniently. As a tool to filter sediment in beer straws can be seen early in history aptly performing this task. Through to later times, straws continued to aid convenience by helping those in the hospital more easily access their drinks from bed. Straws even helped to prevent the spread of disease during the rise of American soda fountains.

Today's plastic straws, however, have become the ultimate throw-away item.

Did you know plastic straw usage amounts to a staggering 25.3 billion little suckers every year in Europe6? And an estimated 500 million straws a day in the US.

Plastic Straws and the Environment

Many straws end up in our seas and waterways.

Science suggests that, somewhat scarily, every plastic straw ever produced is still with us today in one form or another. We can safely assume that the history of the plastic straw moving forward is likely to be a really long one.

Always disposed of after the duration of a drink, straws are the ultimate throw-away item. And sadly, recycling plastic straws to dispose of them correctly poses problems due to their lightweight. Straws almost certainly make the very simple act of drinking perhaps a little easier. At the same time, we've also created an almighty amount of waste.

Incredibly a massive 8 million tons of plastic5 (straws and more) enters our oceans each year.

There's little question that the environmental impact of plastic straws leaves a lot to be desired. More recently, we've seen increased environmental campaigning to phase out plastic straws. And alongside this rise in awareness, more people choose to use reusable straws.

In 2015 a now-famous video of a sea turtle having a plastic straw removed from his nose went viral. A huge boost to awareness of the harm plastic straws causes followed.

In 2018 the EU announced it was banning plastic straws, cutlery, and plates by 2021. Straws consumed to date will still be with us for a long time. Yet, time appears to be nearly up for the plastic straw.

The modern drinking straw looks set to be one of glass, stainless steel, or organic matter such as hemp or grass straw. Even paper drinking straws have become more widely spread and if you avoid clunking them against too much ice tend to do the job.

Written with love by TRVST to inspire us all to act for a better world.

Colourful bendy plastic straws
Today, more than ever before, the environmental impact is more keenly felt. The history of plastic straws might be most aptly closed by their demise as bans take hold and people are more aware of the environmental harm caused by single-use plastics and seek alternatives. Colorful bendy plastic straws are still popular. Photo Credit: Vox Efx on Flickr CC BY 2.0.
Pin Me:
Pin Image Portrait History of Plastic Straws - How Did They Become So Popular?
1Man The Drinker, Patrick McGovern, February 2010
2Butterfly proboscis: combining a drinking straw with a nanosponge facilitated diversification of feeding habits, Daria Monaenkova , Matthew S. Lehnert , Taras Andrukh , Charles E. Beard , Binyamin Rubin , Alexander Tokarev , Wah-Keat Lee , Peter H. Adler , and Konstantin G. Kornev, 17 August 2011.
3Disposable America. A history of modern capitalism from the perspective of the straw. Seriously. Alexis C Madrigal, The Atlantic, 21 June 2018.
4Mate (drink), wikipedia
5Plastic Waste Inputs from Land into the Ocean. Jenna R. Jambeck, Roland Geyer, Chris Wilcox, Theodore R. Siegler, Miriam Perryman, Anthony Andrady, Ramani Narayan, Kara Lavender Law. Science, vol. 347, no. 6223, 13 Feb. 2015, pp. 768–771, doi:10.1126/science.1260352
6

Leverage Points for Reducing Single-use Plastics, Eunomia, Chris Sherrington Chiarina Darrah Steven Watson Joss Winter, 30th March 2017

7

By Design: World War II, plastics and NPE, Glenn Beall, 09 April 2009.

8Plaque depicting a copulating couple drinking beer, Babylonia, Israel Museum
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