Think paper straws and cups are better than plastic? Unfortunately not so…

Paper cups and straws are becoming more and more popular, and plastic products are being replaced by paper derivatives. Wetting the rim of a paper cup or straw can be a little annoying, but at least it’s claimed to be better for the environment. But two new studies suggest that paper products may actually be just as harmful as their widely banned plastic counterparts.

A research team used mosquito larvae to determine the potential impact of paper cups on aquatic life. “We left the paper cups and plastic cups in wet sediment and water for several weeks and followed how the leaking chemicals affected the larvae,” author Bethanie Carney Almroth said in a statement.

The paper cups they used were coated with polylactic acid (PLA). PLA is widely used as a biodegradable alternative to traditional plastic coatings and protects the paper coating from absorbing water. But researchers have discovered that it can also be toxic.

“All of the cups adversely affected the growth of mosquito larvae,” Almroth said. Even in sediment and water, where the paper cups had been drained for only a week, the mosquito larvae shrank in size and delayed their development. These effects tended to increase the longer the paper cups were left to deteriorate.

What about paper straws?

Containers containing PLA are not the only problem. In another study, scientists examined the effect of paper straws and found perfluorinated alkylated substances, or PFAS. More commonly known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS has historically had many uses, but it is now widely accepted to be harmful to the environment and human health.

The Belgium-based research team tested 39 different brands of hay offered for sale in the country. This included not just paper, but bamboo, glass, steel, and plastic, the original environmental threat. Using a technique called Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer, or UPLC-MS/MS for short, they analyzed the PFAS levels in each of the pipettes.

The researchers found that paper straws were most likely to contain PFAS, with 90 percent of them testing positive. Other materials were also not without problems. All but the stainless steel straws were discovered to contain PFAS. Another hit for the pipettes was that the material found was the globally banned perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), the most frequently detected PFAS.

However, it should be noted that it is not clear where the PFAS in the pipettes comes from. It is possible that they were deliberately used to make the straws water resistant. Given their prevalence and strength of adhesion to the environment, it is also possible for them to enter plants used when growing or water used in the production process.

As a result, both studies recommend paying attention to the consumption of paper straws and cups. The work on paper cups was published in Environmental Pollution, and the work on paper straws was published in Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A.