You may have seen the videos – swirling masses of plastic and other garbage, including drinking straws, floating around the ocean and choking sea creatures who think these items are food.

Soon Mainers could have an alternative – a biodegradable “straw straw,” made from stalks of winter rye.

Alex Bennett, a Maine native now living in Boston, discovered such straws in Germany and, with the help of Maine farmer Charley Henderson and Maine grain expert Ellen Mallory, has planted two fields of grain – organic winter rye in Kingfield and red fife in Parkman – so that he can start his own business. Bennett just sent off his application for organic certification.

“Maine is actually a great place to do it because if you look at the grains, they’re northern grains, and those are the ones that have the wide stalks that we’re looking for,” he said. “I do think we should be able to grow product here in Maine this year to sell.”

A kickstarter campaign to raise $12,500 ends on Tuesday. As of last week, Bennett had raised more than $10,000.

Meanwhile, he is already selling drinking straws, made from winter rye grown in Germany, at Vena’s Fizz House in Portland. He hopes to expand to other markets in September. The straws are packaged in compostable cellophane and recycled cardboard in boxes of 40. They sell for $8.

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The straw straws illustrate the old adage that “everything old is new again.” According to Bon Appétit magazine, stalks of rye were the standard for drinking straws until the 1880s, when a man who loved mint juleps invented the paper straw.

The new straw straws go through a natural curing process that give them durability and strength, Bennett said. He is marketing the straws as disposable. “However, what you do in your own home is really up to you,” he said. “You can rinse them out with water and reuse them.”

They are thinner than plastic straws, so they take a little more sucking power, but they get the job done nicely – as long as you aren’t too rough on them. While they do very well in compression tests that measure breakage, squeeze them too tightly and they can split.

That’s one reason Bennett has some advice for the 22 percent of people (he actually did a survey) who like to chew on their straws: “We say no biting.”


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