Deborah Jasmine (FoS), Foo Chui Ching (FASS), Lee Xin Ying Esther (FASS), Liu Hao Ren (FoE), Melanie Ng Suli (CEG)
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
Our Project “Straw Wars” aims to reduce plastic straw usage by providing alternatives to straws. Plastic straws are often regarded as disposal and insignificant. However, because they have a short lifespan of about 20 minutes, are widely used and non-biodegradable, plastic straws is actually one of the most common plastic waste and the top marine trash on Singapore’s coasts. While our preliminary survey on straw usage found that 66.9% of the respondents used straws because of convenience and not of necessity, it is likely difficult to alter people’s habits to not using straws. Thus, although it is hard to recycle straws, their demand would likely stay. Our group aim to replace straws with biodegradable ones. In our preliminary survey, our proposal of edible straws were well received by 70% of the participant. We will exploring two types of edible straws, one will be based on Gelatin or Agar Agar and the second will be flour based. We aim to distribute the straw prototypes and recommend our edible straws to users during the upcoming RVRC events. From there, we will be able to gather their responses and check their receptiveness towards our edible straws.
Keywords: Culture and Lifestyle Trends, Responsible Consumption, Waste Management, edible straw, bio-degradable