Straws as raw material

When plastic straws were banned in Portland, restaurants found themselves not knowing what to do with their excess, clean straws. Midori collected a few batches of straws from local bars to experiment with. These straws were polypropylene and could be shredded in our shredder (although they were slow to shred because of their shape). Midori then melted them into sheets in a converted oven and used a laser cutter to make coasters. Full circle! This coaster is being used at the bar the straws came from.