As bans on plastic straws proliferate, the business of making reusable straws is booming. But one company that wants to sell collapsible steel straws says the competition to market the straws is leading to a flood of counterfeits.
In April, a company called FinalStraw started a Kickstarter campaign to produce a reusable, collapsible, stainless steel straw that consumers could reuse. The company is hoping that its product will appear on Amazon and other shopping sites in November.
As reported by The Independent, the effort was a quick success, surpassing its goal within 24 hours.
Now, other producers are flooding the market, leaving FinalStraw a step behind.
Emma Cohen, the company’s co-founder, complained about what she called counterfeit straws in an interview with BuzzFeed News. The site reported that straws were being sold online using FinalStraw’s promotional images, and that they were selling for about half of the $20 price from FinalStraw.
“The whole purpose was to reduce waste,” Cohen said, saying the cheap knockoffs created a “bigger waste problem.”
She said that consumers who buy a knockoff straw think they are buying her product and then complain to her about the straw failing to meet expectations.
“People are just genuinely confused,” Cohen said. “Some are angry and upset.” – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Sure, San Francisco’s board of supervisors voted unanimously this week to join such cities as Berkeley, Seattle and Vancouver in banning plastic straws, as ABC7News.com reported.
“The legislation proposed by Supervisor Katy Tang not only includes the elimination of plastic straws, but many nonrecyclable plastic items like coffee stirrers,” the outlet noted. “It also includes language that would make San Francisco the first city in the country to ban fluorinated chemicals in food containers. Because San Francisco uses 1 million plastic straws a day, the issue took center stage.”
But in Santa Barbara, things might get even more draconian than that: The city earlier this month passed an ordinance “authorizing hefty fines and even a possible jail sentence for violators who dole out plastic straws at restaurants, bars, and other food establishments,” as Fox Newsreported.
LifeZette reported recently on the ban in Seattle, when it became the first major U.S. city to ban plastic straws and plastic utensils.
“Plastic pollution is surpassing crisis levels in the world’s oceans, and I’m proud Seattle is leading the way and setting an example for the nation by enacting a plastic straw ban,” Mami Hara, general manager of Seattle Public Utilities, told radio station KOMO earlier this month.- READ MORE
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