48 Days of Blue and Simply Straws

This challenge has been over for a while now, but Natalie just posted about it and yesterday I finally got our glass straws in the mail, so I guess now's a good time to share my thoughts on it! This is going to read like an awkward promo post, and I'm sorry, but I'm just really excited about reusable straws. I didn't get compensated in any way for this. Those links aren't even affiliate links.

Most of the 48 Days of Blue tasks were not totally new to me. Thanks to trendy 90s environmentalism (Captain Planet anyone?) and friends today who are very invested in ocean conservation, I already knew about reusable shopping bags, the evils of microbeads, and shorter showers. The real strength of 48 Days of Blue was their cross-promotion of environmentally conscious products that I wasn't previously aware of. One of those products?  Reusable glass straws.

Now, I'm an uncouth troglodyte who doesn't mind drinking straight from the cup, even at a restaurant. But I get that not everyone is like that. JV, for example, prefers straws, even at home. And he does seem to drink more when we have straws around. So how do you balance your own health with the health of the planet?

The only other reusable straw I had been able to find up to that point were dorky little ones for kids in the grocery store under our apartment building.Sure, they're cute and fun, but they 1) are still plastic, so oop and 2) have curly corkscrew bits in an attempt to be more "fun," which made them really difficult to clean, meaning they ended up getting really gross to the point where they had to be thrown out anyway. In short, we really needed a grown-up version. Simply Straws to the rescue!

My one and only complaint is that the shipping to Europe from the US was kind of ridiculous. As much as the actual straw! But "ridiculous shipping + VAT to Europe" is my life now, so like with many other Internet shopping experiences, I cheated and had the package sent to my parents' house. Lawyer Mom forwarded them along in a birthday care package, which means we just got it a couple of days ago despite ordering it in May.

I opted to get JV's straw engraved with my stupid little pet name for him, which ended up essentially netting us a free straw. The first run on his straw, the text wasn't centered, so Simply Straws kindly sent us that reject for free along with a centered version (and a note explaining the mishap). So now both of us have a straw! (Even if I am an uncouth troglodyte, some things are just better with straws. And we both use the same stupid little pet name for each other, so it works out.) Not going to lie: when I got to the Simply Straws part of the package, I almost had a heart attack, because I could hear the clink-clinky of glass against itself. "What?! Did it break on shipping? But these are supposed to be indestructible!" (I shouldn't have panicked; the straws come with a lifetime guarantee that means if it ever breaks, they'll replace it for free.) No: we just had two straws!

I also opted for the special scrubber brush because I know firsthand that reusable straws can get nas-TAY (depending on what you drink with them). A+ experience, would recommend.