Why?

They say the physical properties are like polycarbonate: no problem there.

They don't say how fast it degrades in ideal conditions but do say it takes 4 months in poor conditions, and that it requires microbes not merely water, or oxygen or other chemistry or uv etc, but microbes: sounds like it won't be touched at all in your soda even after a week.

Where is the terrible part?

It doesn't have the same physical properties. Even the idea of that is ridiculous, one physical property the article mentions it its degradability.

"Strength" is also a meaningless metric to compare, it just is not a material property.

Again, they claim the properties are similar to polycarbonate. The properties of polycarbonate are thoroughly understood, and are perfectly suitable for a drinking straw.

So again, what do you base this judgement on exactly? Do you have a sample of the material and can claim they are lying and it's not actually like PC and that it somehow fails when used as a drinking straw? Does it taste bad? Did it steal your girlfriend? Like what?

>Again, they claim the properties are similar to polycarbonate

The claim in the article is "strength" which is not a material property at all. Just a very vague description.

Besides that obviously they do not have the same properties, because the article literally says that it is being eaten by bacteria quite quickly in sea water.

This doesn't make any sense and is not responsive to the points from GP.

Why? Will it get soggy like the regular paper straws?

If it's as they describe... it should not. so a good straw replacement.

If it is as described, won't it harm turtles in the same way plastic straws do? That is, after all, why paper straws became popular following that viral video that went around. Poor structural integrity was the desirable trait they offered.

The "harming turtles" thing was wildly overstated, to start.

Also, ideally not, because the turtles that were claimed to be affected are in the ocean, where the straws degraded in just a few months.

What do you mean it was widely overstated? It is held by the mainstream news as the driver of paper straw adoption. It is not like people gave up on plastics in general over concern for the environment, it was only straws specifically.

Are you one of those "fake news" types?

I think you misread my comment. The worry that turtles were having widespread injuries due to plastic straws was overstated. It started with a viral video. There's no evidence that was anything other than a freak accident.

That's not to say plastics are good, or that marine life aren't affected by them. Clearly they are. Straws are a small factor in that, and I was simply stating that a cellulose based straw that degrades in the ocean is not going to impact turtles, certainly not more than the few rare instances plastic straws harmed them.

Then you misunderstand the situation. People didn't start flocking to paper straws because they actually pose a widespread threat to turtles. It was only done so under feeling good about the idea of helping turtles avoid the hypothetical fate shown in said video. In order to achieve that goal in maintaining the idea of helping turtles, it is necessary for the straws to have poor structural integrity.

Granted, I expect the novelty has already started to wear off. There seems to be growing movement towards returning to plastic straws. And fair enough. You can only worry about turtles for so long before the next viral video gives you something new to worry about. And for that reason, plastic straws may no longer need a replacement (from the irrational human emotion point of view).