HCM City (VNS/VNA) - Vietnamesecompanies making eco-friendly straws have received many orders from othercountries that have reduced the use of plastic straws or even banned theirproduction.

Eco-friendly straws include those made from bamboo, metal, glass, green grassand rice flour. Of these, bamboo, metal and grass straws are used mostly inVietnam.

Many young people are popularising the use of the eco-friendly straws andsharing information on their Facebook pages.

Sado Chado Vietnam bubble-tea and food shops in HCM City, for example, attractmany customers because of their rice flour straws, according to the shop’s Facebook page.

Last month, images and information about rice flour straws, for instance, wereshared widely on Facebook, with many people showing interest.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuan of the southern coastal province of Ba Ria-Vung Tauwrote on Facebook: “I want to try use eco-friendly straws because I seetoo much plastic waste, including straws, thrown under trees on the way from myhouse to the company where I work. If these eco-friendly straws are sold atsupermarkets, I will buy them.”

Vo Minh Khang, General Director of Hung Hau Foods Co Ltd, said the company wasusing rice flour from the well-known Bot (Flour) Village in Sa Dec city in theMekong Delta province of Dong Thap as the main material for straws.

“The demand is getting higher here and in other countries, too. Young peoplehere like this product,” Khang said.

The company is now producing five tonnes each day compared to one tonne inprevious months, he said.

Many coffee chains in the country have ordered the rice flour straws, he said.“This product has also been ordered by many companies in the Republic of Korea,Russia, the US and Europe.”

“Rice flour straws can be preserved for 18 months at normal temperatures. It isbetter to use in cold and normal water. The time of use is for 30 minutes.After the time, straw becomes soft and can break.”

Tetra Pak, which provides processing and packaging solutions for food, plans toreplace its plastic straws. It is testing paper to ensure food safety forconsumers’ health before it begins making the new products, as part of abroader programme to help address the issue of plastic straw waste.

Many companies from other countries have come to Vietnam to learn aboutmanufacturing process and products, with the aim of importing them to theircountries.

INK Global Co Ltd in the Republic of Korea, which will ban disposable cups andplastic straws by 2027, visited a grass straw manufacturer in the Mekong Deltaprovince of Long An last week.

Kim Bong Yong, the company’s CEO, said: “I saw this product in a hotel inVietnam. So I searched the name of the company and came to buy for the Koreanmarket.”

The demand in the RoK has soared because of the country’s upcoming ban.

“These grass straws have good quality,” he added.

Nguyen Ngoc Hoa, Director of the Vietnam -German Technology Centre at the HCMCity University of Food and Industry, said by phone: “These eco-friendly strawsshould be encouraged because they’re safe for consumers. It’s very importantthat the materials used to produce these straws are ‘clean’.” 

Nguyen Thuong Hien of the Vietnam Environment Administration’s Department ofSolid Waste Management at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Developmenttold Tuoi tre (Youth) newspaper that the department is carrying out aproject on reducing plastic waste, including single-use straws that are nowbeing used at restaurants and coffee shops.

The country has nearly 2.5 million tonnes of single-use plastic products thrownaway each year, Hien said.

Vietnam is one of the top five countries that throw away the largest volume ofplastic waste on beaches, according to Stemming the Tide, a 2015 study by theOcean Conservancy and McKinsey Centre for Business and Environment.

According to the Ocean Conservancy, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group inthe US, eight million tonnes of plastics have entered the ocean. Around 43,000plastic straws were picked up around beaches and waterways all over the worldin a 2017 international coastal cleanup.

For A Strawless Ocean, an open-source resource developed by Lonely Whale ofSocial and Environmental Entrepreneur, found that straws were among the top 10items found during beach cleanups. They can cause serious harm to seabirds, turtlesand other marine life.-VNS/VNA