THE LAST PLASTIC STRAW

Sometimes you just have to suck it up.

If you imagine drinking straws are a modern innovation, think again. This timely exploration of an environmental problem informs readers about the long history of the slender tube many beverage drinkers take for granted. Straws actually date back more than five millennia to ancient Sumer. When Sumerians needed to find a way to filter out thick substances from their home-brewed beverages, they ingeniously used thin, hollow reeds, enabling them to imbibe only liquids. Over the centuries, other civilizations developed similar drinking tubes made from various plants and other items, including straw, from which the implement we now use derived its name. In the late 19th century in Washington, D.C., Marvin Stone invented and patented the paper straw. In the late 1930s, another American, Joseph Friedman, developed and patented the “bendy straw,” which was sold after World War II ended. In the 1950s, straws began to be manufactured from plastic; by the following decade, they were ubiquitous, ultimately contributing to environmental disaster. In direct, well-written prose, the author makes starkly clear how “single-use plastics,” such as straws, water bottles, and plastic bags, harm the Earth, oceans, and sea creatures and offers easy, sensible, responsible solutions that everyone can adopt to help the planet while not having to abandon straws entirely. The bold digital illustrations are eye-catching and inventive and maintain high reader interest. Racial diversity is depicted throughout. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

An important topic gets a very appealing treatment.