Every straw contains strictly four food-grade components mixed without synthetic resins, petroleum waxes, or industrial bleaching agents.
Sunflower pith
Tapioca starch
Glycerine & water
Harvested from upcycled field stalks, the cellular pith core provides lightweight structural rigidity and natural hydrophobic barrier properties.
Purified cassava root starch acts as the high-tensile binder, locking cellular pith fibers into a cohesive matrix that repels cold moisture.
Food-grade vegetable glycerine and filtered water grant tensile elasticity, preventing brittle cracks when straws are flexed or iced.
From stalk to straw
Stem crushing
Combining ingredients
Extrude and cut
Dehydration and drying
We first load the stalks into a machine that cuts off the head and roots and crushes it o release the pith as chips. It then goes into a lower level which crushed the chips even further to a powder.
We then mix the powder with tapioca starch, vegetable glycerin and tap water in the ratio 35% pith, 55% tapioca starch, 5% glycerin and 5% water. This is done in an industrial dough mixer to get a thick paste
We then extrude the mixture in an extruder with an inbuilt rotary cutter so that we can get uniform moulds of whatever length straw we need (12.5cm, 20cm or 25cm)
Finally, we load the tubes into a cabinet dehydrator that then heats them and makes them firm and insoluble in water and ready for your drink.
Mechanical Tooling
Pure physical compression
Traditional paper straw manufacturing relies on plasticisers, PFAS chemicals, polyvinyl coatings, or petroleum-based PLA resins to maintain water resistance. We, at Solstraw, replace chemical adhesives with calibrated mechanical friction, densifying the starch-pith mixture until it achieves natural impermeability.
Because our extrusion lines operate entirely without synthetic residues, finished straws leave zero toxic runoff during manufacture and return harmlessly to standard organic compost.