The Last Straw

Red Straws by TheTruthAbout/Flickr

I love straws. All kinds of straws. Bendy straws. Straight straws. Colored straws. Striped straws. Curly-cue straws. Animal shaped straws. Day-glo straws. Cocktail straws. They bring me pure pleasure. It may have something to do with an oral fixation of mine. Or it may be my inner-child. I just know that any drink is better if drunk through a straw.

I like chewing them, too. And tying them into knots.

But I got to thinking about how environmentally unfriendly they probably are – the costs of production and disposal, you know. So I decided to see what other things straws might be good for, other than making me happy (which, while super vital to me, may not justify the destruction of the planet)… I’m happy to report, I found enough to alleviate my guilt.

Post-modern artists and designers help me do that for almost anything, since they create their masterpieces with almost everything. In fact, I may owe Scott Jarvie a soda, in gratitude for his imaginative use of my favorite sipping aid.

Clutch Chair by Scott Jarvie

I’ll just ignore the fact that his conceptual floating lounge chair is a commentary on our disposable society, and instead marvel at how much patience it must have taken to align the 10,000 straws incorporated in this little beauty.

Clutch Spotlight. Designed by Scott Jarvie

The wall lamp he created is even more awesome, don’t you think? And you know how much I like cool lighting fixtures.

Mr. Jarvie isn’t the only one who thinks straws make great home decor, either. Tal Gur, one of Isreal’s leading designers, created a chair and table for Promise Design that remind me of those little bottles of colored sand you can buy at any beach town souvenir shop. I can’t even imaging how many straws were used.

Tal Gur at Promise Design

Not as many as Tara Donovan needed to create her wall art. It doesn’t even look like straws from far away, does it? More like snow, or cotton balls, or a really bad plaster job. But I totally dig it.

By Tara Donovan

And it really is made of straws.

Detail of Tara Donovan installation

But now the guilt is seeping back in, because I’m guessing that all those straws weren’t just slowly collected over twenty years of culling garbage dumps. Only aliens would do something like that.

Instead, I bet all those thousands of straws were created specifically for Ms. Donovan’s project. And that’s not going to help preserve nature’s straws at all!

Photo by Dave Bunnell

Beautiful, no? Soda Straws are the most fragile of stalactites, and hollow, just like the plastic one in my iced tea, which I guzzled because it is so damn hot. Probably due to global warming. Or the forest fires. Which are also probably due to global warming. Or the fact that it is summer.

Venezuelan NesTea Ad

It’s all so overwhelming, really. I’d love to continue drinking my iced tea without pondering whether it will somehow end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or if my niece will end up having to live with landfills full of my straws. That said, I’d also love to eat cheese straws without getting horrible gas or high cholesterol. And suntan without running the risk of skin cancer. And wear pretty four-inch heels without looking like a new-born giraffe or getting numb toes. And dance naked in the rain without freaking the fuck out of myself and my neighbors.

Okay, maybe not the last one. The heat has clearly made me loopy. Perhaps I’m dehydrated. I need another iced tea. And it’ll go down better with a straw.

For now, that’s just the way it’s gonna be. I’ll worry about saving the planet once I’ve quenched my thirst.

Thank you, Mr. Stone, for making that so easy.

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