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March 14
How Grass Straws Are Made?
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Grass straws drinking is a type of eco-friendly straw that is invented and introduced in recent years. First appearing in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam, they rapidly gained love and care from numerous environment lovers of the country and all over the world. They soon became popular on the market and are promising to be the alternative to single-use plastic straws someday. However, many of us will be curious about their origin and the production process as well.
In this article, we will go through the entire process of making grass straws, the eco solution for ending the plastic straws crisis. What are they made of? And how are they made?
Now, let's start!
What are grass straws made of?
Grass straws are 100% organic drinking straws made of sedge grass, a type of Lepironia grass. This is a wild grass that is widely grown in the western provinces of Vietnam where there are saline soils and alum contamination. Co Bang is the name that local people call it. Throughout many generations, our farmers used its raw material to make handicrafts such as knit cushions, mats, baskets, hats and cottages. Till now, these grass products, yet are the main source of income for many rural farmer families.
Sedge grass field - the raw material to make grass drinking straws
Having the shape of a long, hollow tube that is about 3’2 feet high alongside an inner diameter of 0.2-0.4 inch approximately, this type of grass has the perfect toughness to be made into drinking straws. They are easy to grow and can grow really well regardless of sunlight or rain, people only need to plug their stump into the ground and nurture within one and a half years to harvest.
How Coba grass straws are made?
At COBA, we made our drinking grass straws the traditional natural way that yields the highest quality, from harvesting the raw materials to the treatment process and packaging the final products. Our manufacturing process includes 8 steps as following:
Farmers harvesting sedge grass, the raw materials to make grass drinking straws
Step 1: Harvesting raw materials
Plant stalks are carefully chosen and harvested manually
Making grass straws - Outer cleaning
Step 2: Outer cleaning & preliminary treatment
After harvesting, the plant stalks are soaked into the ash water for disinfection & alum removal then washed by water and cut into straw-sized tubes – lengths measuring 20 centimeters (about 8 inches). After this step, we’ll have semi-finished straws.
Making straws from sedge grass
Step 3: Inner cleaning
An iron rod is used to thoroughly clean the inner of semi-finished straws removing the intestine horizontal and velvet surface inside, then followed by one last washing.
Step 4&5: Rinse and disinfect with saltwater and silver nanocrystals
After thorough cleaning both outside and inside, the straws are soaked into saltwater, and silver nanocrystals afterwards to rinse and disinfect bacteria.
Making grass straws - Rinse and Disinfect
Step 6: Drying and ultraviolet irradiation
The fresh grass straws are dried under the sun for 3-5 hours, then put into the drying machine to make dried grass straws. We also are the pioneer in applying cold drying technology that helps to keep the green color and natural fragrance of the grass.
Step 7: Quality checking & testing
The straws are checked and tested at the QA step to remove defective products during the production process.
Step 8: Final packaging
The final grass straws are packaged and stored, with the date of manufacture.
As you see, a grass drinking straw may look very simple, but its production process isn't necessarily as simple as itself. And that is how we made eco straws with our big love and care.
Tags
biodegradable straws, eco friendly straws, eco straws, grass straws, grass straws drinking, grass straws vietnam, How grass straws made, organic straws