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Snappy Salads switches to paper straws

The brand is making the switch in an effort to cut down on the amount of plastic waste that makes its way to the ocean.

November 10, 2014

Dallas-based Snappy Salads today announced that it is now providing guests premium paper straws instead of plastic ones.

Plastic straws are among the top 10 debris items in oceans, according to a press release from Snappy Straws, contributing to a floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean known as the North Pacific Garbage Patch.

"Switching to paper straws has been a goal of mine ever since I saw these segments on this monstrous floating trash gyre that’s out of sight, out of mind," Chris Dahlander, founder and CEO of Snappy Salads, said in the release. "Knowing that I was contributing to this, albeit a very small portion, was very motivating to me even though I knew that it would cost more for the paper straws."

The premium plain white paper straws are sourced from Aardvark Straws of Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is the only US manufacturer of paper straws, according to the release. Aardvark is the original inventor and patent holder that started making straws in 1888. The straws are made in America, biodegradable, compostable, and 100-percent chlorine-free.

the paper-based material used for the straws comes from a sustainably managed forest with chain-of-custody procedures in place. The paraffin wax used to manufacture the drinking straws is GMO-free.

"If you really stop to think about it, the average life span of a straw is about 30 minutes. If it’s made from plastic, it remains in our environment 500 or more years. It will outlive us – and generations to come. This isn’t what I want resting on my shoulders when I go to sleep at night and I hope more companies will have the same commitment," Dahlander said.