The Story of the Drinking Straw

Long before plastic, people were already drinking through tubes. Around 3000 BC, the Sumerians sipped beer through long golden tubes to avoid the bitter sediment floating at the top of their brews.

A problem with rye grass

Fast-forward to 1880s Washington, D.C. Marvin Stone, a manufacturer of paper cigarette holders, was tired of the rye-grass straws used at the time. They turned soggy and left a grassy taste in his mint julep. So he wound paper around a pencil, glued it, and the modern straw was born. He patented it in 1888.

Bending the rules

In the 1930s, Joseph Friedman watched his daughter struggle to drink a milkshake through a straight straw. He inserted a screw, wrapped dental floss around the grooves, and invented the bendy straw.

In the full documentary, we follow the straw from ancient Mesopotamia to the plastics boom, and the backlash that's bringing paper back.