Does Plastic straw have microplastics?
The short answer
A polymer tube held in the mouth and in the drink for the whole time you are drinking. Individually small, and it is a contact surface you add to every cold drink for no functional reason.
Why Plastic straw scores 41
Continuous contact with the drink and with the mouth for the duration
Polypropylene, one of the more stable food plastics — this is not a worst-case polymer
Chewing a straw, which many people do, is direct mechanical abrasion at the mouth
Cold drinks, which removes heat as a driver almost entirely
Where the 41 comes from
Five components, added. The page renders the parts rather than a stored total, so the number cannot disagree with the reasoning behind it.
- Packaging contact
- 18 / 30
- Use conditions
- 12 / 25
- Measured release
- 6 / 25
- Polymer behaviour
- 5 / 10
- Processing
- 0 / 10
What material touches the contents, over how much surface area, for how long. Glass and steel score near zero here; a film pressed against fatty food scores near the top.
Heat, abrasion, flexing, repeated opening, reuse beyond design life. The same bottle scores differently in a fridge and in a hot car.
What a laboratory actually counted, for this product or its category. A high number here means real particles were measured, not that the material looks suspicious.
How this specific polymer behaves — brittleness, fat solubility of its additives, thermal stability, whether it is a polymer named in existing restrictions.
What happened before you bought it. Retort sterilisation inside the pack, hot-filling, and pressurised brewing all happen at the most migration-favourable moment.
What we don't know
Straws have not been measured. Polypropylene at drink temperature is a mild condition compared with almost anything else in this database, and the honest framing is that a straw is a small addition rather than a hidden problem.
This section is on every page in the database, including the ones where the answer is comfortable. How evidence grades work →
Better options
Ordered by how much they change, not by how much they cost.
No straw
the answer for a glass on a table
Stainless steel or glass straw
if you want one, these are permanent
Not a paper straw
paper straws are lined, and often with PFAS
Check the one in your kitchen
This page scores Plastic straw as a product. Formulations, packaging and suppliers change, and the specific item you own has its own condition — a scratched pan and a new one are not the same object. Scan yours for a score built from what is actually in front of you.
Scan my householdSources behind this score
Each with the finding we use it for and the limitation that finding carries — because a study quoted without its boundaries is how this subject got so noisy.
- peer-reviewed2022
Zangmeister 2022 (NIST) — Nylon bags, LDPE food-storage bags and similar single-use plastics shed trillions of sub-100 nm particles per litre in ordinary contact with water.
Limitation: Deionised water at controlled temperature. Nanoparticle counts are inherently large numbers; the study is about their existence and quantity, not their fate in the body.
- peer-reviewed2020
Du 2020 — Take-out containers released 3–29 microplastic particles each, with polypropylene containers the most common source.
Limitation: Counts particles above the detection limit of the method used, so it says nothing about the nanoplastic fraction, which other work suggests dominates by number.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Plastic straw have microplastics?
How was the Plastic straw score of 41 calculated?
Is Plastic straw safe?
Why is the confidence only 56%?
Scored next to this
Paper straw
Wound paper with an adhesive and, usually, a barrier coating
Grade C · 58%
Starbucks cold cup
Clear PET (#1) cup with a PET dome lid and a plastic straw
Grade C · 60%
Disposable plastic cutlery
Polystyrene or polypropylene
Grade C · 58%
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