There’s Something About Stroodles…
Find out how Stroodles is more than just another straw company. We are a movement!
Hello everyone, Mr. Stroodles here. This article will give you an insight into why Stroodles, the 100% bio-degradable pasta straw has been created, what problems we are trying to tackle, and how we are unique in the eco-ware market.
The straw market and the plastic straw problem:
Image Credit: ecowithem_
Did you know that in the UK alone 1 million straws are consumed every HOUR (which tots up to a staggering 8.5 billion straws per year). This mass consumption of unneccessary plastic has led the EU to finally deciding to ban plastic straws by 2021. In fact in the UK this ruling goes into action on from July 3rd. While this is fantastic news and definitely something to celebrate the straw industry is still a huge market, worth a whopping $4.5bn globally. This rate of growth isn’t slowing down either, with estimates that it will be worth $9bn+ in 2022!
So many straws and other plastic items e.g. bags, packaging etc. end up discarded in the world’s oceans and beaches. Real and impactful actions must be taken to help reduce and eventually counteract the effects of this pollution. Keep reading to understand what Stroodles is doing to help tackle this issue.
Source: Billions of Discarded Straws
Stroodles mission and our progress so far
We recognise that everyone is aware of the plastic problem and the detrimental effect it is having on our planet. The vast majority of people do care about saving this home we call Earth, but most aren’t really sure where to start. One of the issues that crops up is that many of the solutions presented can seem radical and compromising to someone’s lifestyle. Stroodles aren’t asking people to completely alter their way of being. Instead, inspired by the zero-waste chief Anne — Marie Bonneau’s quote “We don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly”. This imperfect approach to environmentalism is how we believe the world will move forward, as almost everyone can help by doing a bit of good. Our main ambition is to inspire the world to make small positive eco-friendly changes that will cause a ripple effect leading to significant differences to our environment.
Radical changes do have to also be made e.g. moving towards electric cars, switching to clean energy etc. but we are currently more concerned about what the average person can realistically achieve on a day to day basis.
We are optimistic that Stroodles pasta straws will become the go-to alternative to soggy paper straws that hurt the environment. This product along with our other products that are in the works are all bio-degradable, edible, durable and simple! This means that shops, restaurants and individuals can easily switch to our products without having to compromise the quality of consuming a drink or eating food. If anything our products heighten these experiences e.g. our straws last for over an hour! How many paper straws do the same? We also hope that if people switch to our products they will be more inclined to think about sustainable living and their consumer behaviours may change for the better of the planet.
There is a theory that states that in order for individuals to make lasting behavioural changes they require 12–13 touchpoints. To move people towards sustainable actions we are hoping that Stroodles can become one of these key touchpoints. Through using our pasta straws we hope to bring about awareness as to the ease of use of our products and those similar to ours. This hopefully will lead to consumers acting in more mindful ways in their future purchasing choices e.g. opting not to buy a plastic-wrapped vegetable at the supermarket etc.
We also hope people enjoy our product and our company character. Stroodles is a fun and engaging concept and the novelty of our straws are definitely a talking point! Our Mr Stroodles mascot is designed to be positive and friendly and great at welcoming everyone and anyone to our Stroodles family. We think having an open-minded and uplifting approach is so much more effective and inclusive than bashing anyone for their choices. Our movement which encompasses being accepting, inviting and positive about sustainability, aims to reach all parts of the world one Stroodle at a time!
Educational Initiatives
Our commitment to spreading awareness and encouraging change doesn’t stop here. Not only do we support charities, such as Plastic Oceans UK, but we also spread awareness about the issue of plastic polution through campaigns and education.
We have partned up with Clean Ocean Sailing (COS) for our latest campaign called #MakeASplash. COS is an amazing Cornish organisation who are dedicated to tackling plastic pollution by cleaning up coasts and oceans. Learn how you can get involved through creating or donating today: CLICK ME
We have been very inspired by our friends in Vietnam, who launched The Strawpocalypse. This was a huge art installation created from over 168,000 plastic straws! As you can see in the picture below the team created a 10ft + tall straw sculpture that represented the parting of the plastic sea, to make way for a new more eco-friendly world.
Us Stroodlers would love to create something similar to this and get local schools and artists involved to support us. Rather than bars and restaurants throwing away plastic straws we think the idea of producing something powerful and beautiful with them is awesome!
Source: The Strawpocalypse
Another project that we have in mind is to find and work with disadvantaged groups in local communities, teaching them to create “straw merchandise” from used plastic straws. We could sell these on our website and/or provide these to our affiliated bars with all proceeds benefitting the local communities.
If you have any ideas or suggestions about other plastic-tackling initatives we should check out or consider doing then send us a message. Also, if you want to get involved in some way for example being a brand ambassador for Stroodles then do contact us.
That’s all from Stroodles today! Hope you’ve enjoyed reading and stay tuned for more blogposts.
