Stainless Steel Drinking Straws

A few years ago I learned of the existence of reusable, glass drinking straws. I thought we just had to have them. We aren't even big straw users, but they were beautiful and I thought they'd be fun for our kids. After all, how can you make milk bubbles without straws? I can't abide anything disposable, so I thought these beautiful and simple glass ones would be perfect for our family.

Fortunately, I have a crafty partner who always helps me find a way around buying things. When I showed him the straws online, which would have cost almost $30 for a simple set of four, he scoffed and said he could easily make some. The one drawback is that they wouldn't be glass, but I could deal with that.





He simply bought a piece of stainless steel tubing, and then cut it to about 6" lengths. The first cut was made with a pipe cutter, which makes a clean cut, but the blade was pretty much used up on that one straw. For the next three straws he used a hacksaw, and then sanded the edges smooth. He says if he were to make them again, he would use a circular saw, which would be a little easier.

My kids now use them every day for green smoothies, and occasionally for milk bubbles, and we don't create any plastic garbage. Nor do we ever have to buy straws again.





If you use a dishwasher, you can just toss them in, but we do pretty much everything manually around here ;) I'd like to get a brush cleaner that could fit inside the straws, but for now Nik attached a small piece of rag to a length of sturdy wire, for a DIY straw cleaner. However, I find that if I just rinse them right away they clean up fine without the rag-on-a-wire setup.

One major difference between these and disposable straws that you will notice is the weight. You won't want to use them in a delicate wine glass, for example. The six inch straws are perfect for our 3 or 4 inch tall glasses, but if you use pint glasses you would want to make them longer.