Revolution That Gives Hope: Wooden Straws

Where and how do you think the straws, which we use in every aspect of our daily life, may have first emerged? The answer to this question is I think we can give it with golden straws from a Sumerian tomb dating back to 3000 BC. While the Sumerians, who are in the upper strata, used thin and long straws to drink their drinks, we encounter the same golden straws among the Egyptians. Then, when we look at South Africans, we see that they also use wooden straws called 'bombilla'. These straws, called Bombilla, have a strainer at the bottom and are specially produced for filtering Mate tea.

As we get closer to the present day, straws have started to take on the forms we know. In 1888, a man named Marvin C. Stone invented the first modern straw by wrapping and pasting a pencil in strips. However, due to the very narrow and unusable tip, these straws were eventually replaced by the straws we use today.

Plastic Straws Prepare the Ground for the Nature Massacre!

With the increasing industrial revolutions and technological developments in the 20th century, our habits have also undergone a great change. As consumption increased, the need for more practical disposable materials increased proportionally. This is exactly where, with the introduction of plastics, which seem quite advantageous in terms of production and cost, the manufacturers turned their focus to this issue and started to make their investments in this field. Colorful plastic straws in various sizes and shapes entered our lives at this point. While the consumption of plastic straws was increasing rapidly with the increasing needs every day, this would also prepare the ground for the natural massacre to be experienced.

At first, both producers and consumers focused only on easily meeting their needs. No one thought about where these plastic straws went or what disasters they could cause. No one saw the damage to animals, which are the building blocks of the ecosystem, especially sea creatures. No one paid any attention to the sea turtles who choked to death due to plastic straws stuck in their noses. Thus, the piles of disposable plastic straws increased day by day. Nowadays, our oceans are filled with too much single-use plastic garbage to avoid.

Alternatives to Plastic Straws Are Also Out of Class

As time progressed, people began to look for solutions to this plastic straw issue and to think of alternative ways. Straws were important inventions that made people's lives extremely easy, and they provided ease of use, especially in food and beverages. From this point of view, companies started to produce alternatives to plastic straws. Among these alternatives, glass and metal straws were among the most widely used today. However, over time, it has become a subject of great debate that these straws can cause dangerous situations. This made people hesitate to use these straws.

In the following periods, bamboo and paper straws came to the fore. However, the desired efficiency could not be obtained from them, because bamboo straws were very difficult and costly to produce, and paper straws were not useful because they melted easily. At the same time, bamboo was subjected to negative criticism from users because it traps too much odor in it. Other alternatives were wheat and straw, but they were also difficult and costly to manufacture, like bamboo straws. The last stop of the companies trying to produce different alternatives was pasta and they produced pasta in the form of straws. Pasta, which is an interesting alternative, was not preferred by consumers due to their very fragile structure.

WANTED BLOOD FOUND: WOODEN STRAWS!

At this very point, as the nEGO Wood family, we rolled up our sleeves in 2019 and started working on producing completely eco-friendly wooden straws from trees grown for use in the wood industry. As the first company in the world that started mass production of wooden straws, we not only undersigned a project that would be revolutionary in the history of straws but also wanted to bring a future full of hope to our nature with this project. Our biggest goal was to produce a sustainable straw and to make it easily recyclable. At the same time, it was very important for us that it could come to life as new items after use. We wanted it to contribute to life in another form, perhaps by turning it into a bird's nest, a pencil holder, or a picture frame instead of just going to waste.

We would like to state that while we pay great attention to Sustainable Forest Management in the production of our wooden straws, all kinds of processes that will harm nature are avoided. At the same time, our products are produced to hygienic standards suitable for human health and do not cause any health problems.

See your contributions in this journey that we have taken with firm steps within the scope of the fight against plastic. We will be pleased to. Let's save our nature from this evil together and leave a world full of hope for our future.

Come on, join our nEGO Wood family without wasting time.
Are you ready to embrace a clean future together?

Authored by: İlayda Gülşen