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Development of a sustainable production process for manufacturing a drinking straw from wood waste
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Wood-waste drinking straw with chemical-free production process; life cycle analysis shows lowest environmental impact vs. plastic, paper, and steel alternatives.
The drinking straws used to consume beverages in general, usually made from plastics, are classified as single-use materials. Due to the large amount of straws being used, and due to a series of factors involving production, use and disposal, this has represented a significant problem for the environment and consequently for humanity. Thus, the development of alternative straws that do not represent such problems is necessary and meets the premises of Sustainable Development (SD). The development of this product, combined with the use of waste in its formulation, has great potential for study, where wood waste is a viable alternative. It should be noted that this work is centered on the use of wood residues from clean sources, free of contaminants, such as those from known sources, since the use is for food purposes. In this context, the objective of this work was to develop a sustainable drinking straw from wood waste. To achieve this objective, it was necessary to develop a new production process, involving the creation of tools to adapt them to selected equipment. The process designed has few steps, is free of chemicals, does not use water and does not generate polluting gases or liquid effluents. To prove the sustainability of the process created, a Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) “from cradle to grave”, considering the phases of raw material extraction, product production and disposal. The Eco-indicator 99 method was used in order to carry out a comparative evaluation of the production process of the manufactured product in relation to the production processes of other three types of drinking straws: i) plastic straw; ii) paper straw; iii) stainless steel straw. It was possible to identify that the categories of impacts related to climate change, ozone depletion and acidification were the most influential for the areas of damage analyzed (Human Health, Natural Environment and Natural Resources). It was possible to observe that the plastic straw has the potential of 100% contribution to impacts in each of these categories. In this way, it was identified that of the straw from wood residue is the least impactful when compared to the other three types of drinking straw analyzed.
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