From gold to plastic to dust

The evolution and ultimate demise of a drinking straw design.

Drinking straw via Unsplash

“Freddo Cappuccino Crema” is the best coffee drink of all time. Burned, bitter liquid, dangerous like the prehistoric oil fields where dinosaurs met their sticky fate, collides with at least 6 centimeters of thick, sweet cream on top:

Freddo Cappuccino Crema, source

The only way to drink this Greek monster properly is with a straw. Start at the bottom, where the coffee is strongest, then rise slowly into the cloud of cream. Balance the devilish bitterness with artery-clogging sweetness. Open your eyes. Feel alive.

But, the problem is, it’s surprisingly hard to find a good straw to enjoy this:

1. Paper straws from coffee shops are useless. They fall apart from just one glance at this drink. No paper straw survives heavy cream for long.
2. A single metal straw can emit 150–200 times more carbon dioxide than a plastic straw, so it’s a no. Also, it's filthy — if you don’t wash it like a maniac.
3. I can’t just buy a single plastic straw. Only a hundred. And they are too thin — I need more like a bubble tea caliber for the cream.
4. Importing bamboo-or-whatever-else straws by plane is not a better alternative to buying plastic.

All this progress — penicillin, the Onion, the nuclear bomb — and for what?

It’s 2025, and I wish I could sit down with the Sumerian kings and queens of 3,000 BC, look them in the eye, and explain what the hell we have done to the humble drinking straw.

What makes a product an enemy to mankind?

Dead turtles.

Plastic straws seemed like a great idea — cheap, durable, and everywhere. But no one thought about what happens after they’re tossed.

In “Design for a Better World,” Don Norman says that’s the problem with design — we focus on quick wins and profits without thinking about the bigger picture. He argues designers must adopt a holistic perspective.