Bakery offers organic option as it phases out plastic straws
Customers at Bliss Bakery now can choose either free paper straw or bamboo one for $1
It’s so hip and environmentally responsible to sip through a bamboo straw.
Yes, we mean an actual piece of bamboo.
“It’s a completely natural, eightinch-long (20-centimetre) section of the bamboo grass, which is hollow,” said Darci Yeo, the owner of five Bliss Bakery locations in Kelowna, West Kelowna and Peachland.
“We have our supplier ask for pieces of bamboo cut to the length and diameter (about one centimetre) we need. It has to be long enough to fit all the drinks we serve and big enough around so you can sip a smoothie through it.”
While bamboo is a plentiful and fast-growing grass, it does cost more than plastic and paper, especially when it’s cut to size and has to be imported from the tropics.
So, if you want a bamboo straw in your Bliss drink, the cost will be $1 extra.
“I expect a lot of people will opt for bamboo because they are reusable,” said Yeo.
“You keep the straw and use it over and over. You can even put it in the dishwasher. We also sell $2 fabric sleeves you can put your straw in when you aren’t using it. And its handmade in the same regions of Bali and Thailand where the bamboo comes from.”
You can still get a free straw at Bliss. But, rather than unrecyclable, one-use plastic, it will be recyclable and biodegradable twisted paper.
But be quick with your paper straw, as it starts to get a little mushy after 15 minutes in water or a cold-brew coffee or half an hour in a smoothie.
Bamboo is tough and will never go mushy. The move to bamboo is part of Bliss phasing out one use plastic straws.
“Up until recently, I was feeling good about us using recyclable plastic straws,” said Yeo.
“And then I found out they aren’t actually recyclable in the Central Okanagan. We were having people put plastic straws in our recycling when they were finished with them only to have them end up at the dump. Apparently, there’s no buyer for that type of plastic to turn it into other products.”
As a small business, Bliss is flexible and can react quickly.
So, one-use plastic straws are being phased out over the next two weeks.
Gargantuan multinational Starbucks is also phasing out one-use plastic straws, but it’s going to take two years.
Usually, the switch from plastic means the introduction of paper straws.
And, as mentioned, such twisted-paper straws will be the norm at Bliss.
Paper straws are recyclable and biodegradable, and so are environmentally friendly whether you toss them in a blue bin or the garbage.
However, Bliss prefers if you place them in its recycling receptacles so they can be made into new paper products.
Bliss sources its bamboo straws through SinFreeStraws, a non-profit organization in Hong Kong that works with farmers in Bali and Thailand who operate organically and free of pesticides.
Real bamboo straws and the nominal extra fee is Bliss’s way of taking its recycling and reuse to the next level.
“I recognize as a coffee shop and bakery we are contributing to the single-use packaging problem,” said Yeo, “but we’re trying to minimize our footprint by doing as much as we can.”
Bliss has instituted a new recycling program for its single-use containers.
Single-use plastic has long been vilified as the nonbiodegradable pollutant contributing to the contamination of land, sea and air. Many cities and regions are banning all single-use plastic.
Reusable cloth shopping bags and refillable metal or glass water bottles are some of the most obvious alternatives.
But bamboo is the rapidly growing wonder grass that can also lead to a world with less plastic and less wood and paper from slow-growing trees.
Bamboo can be made into everything from lumber, flooring, countertops, newsprint, cardboard, toilet paper, clothing and bedding to fencing, water pipes, blinds, baskets, bathtubs, car parts, bike frames, and even beer and wine.