Petition launched

Beverage manufacturer wants plastic straws back

Capri-Sun wants the plastic straw back.(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Lutsenko Oleksandr)

Drinks manufacturer Capri-Sun has launched an online petition for a return to plastic straws. The company wants to collect a total of one million signatures on the change.org platform - in order to pass them on to the EU Commission. 

Around two weeks ago, Capri Sun CEO Roland Weening told the Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung that he wanted to work towards an exemption from the EU ban on single-use plastic straws.

"Don't believe in an exemption"
However, Adriana Neligan, an expert on the circular economy at the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, said: "I don't believe that there will be an exemption for any company." Andreas Hermann from the Öko-Institut in Darmstadt said that the directive serves to protect the environment, plastic drinking straws are banned - "and the directive does not provide for any exemptions".

Environmentalists were extremely critical of Capri-Sun's plan. "The product itself is already a disposable disaster, it turns directly into waste - that no longer fits in with our times, in which politicians and people around the world are committed to a sustainable future," said Viola Wohlgemuth from the Exit Plastik alliance. "Reintroducing the plastic straw would be a step back into the last century."

Paper straws and dissatisfied customers
Capri-Sun, which produces in Eppelheim near Heidelberg, has been using paper straws since 2021. Weening had said that the company was working on switching back to plastic straws in Switzerland and neighboring countries. Customers are bothered by the fact that the paper straw currently in use is harder to insert, becomes soft and leads to a paper taste when drinking. The company is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland - where the EU ban does not apply.

Expert Neligan said that she also does not expect the EU ban on single-use plastic items from 2021 to be reversed. However, Neligan was also critical of paper straws, some of which would barely last a single use. "The question is: how often can I use a product? And that of course improves the environmental footprint." Recycled plastic bags, for example, have a better eco-balance than paper bags.

Looking for alternatives
According to a spokeswoman, Capri-Sun is currently looking into the possibility of consumers being able to dispose of drinking bags and straws - both made of polypropylene - together in recyclable plastic waste. Polypropylene is a plastic. At present, the classic 200-milliliter version of the drinking bag also contains aluminium. In the next step, the drinking bag will be made of polypropylene only.