If you're a bar or restaurant, please invest in metal, re-usable straws instead of humiliating your paying clients with paper ones. I just don't understand why a place that charges $50 or more for a dinner would do something like this.
Probably health regulations and existing infrastructure.
They have an Industrial Dishwasher. It's pretty good at blasting dishes, bowls, plates, cups, utensils, etc, things with all their surfaces easily exposed and no narrow inner areas, with hot water and a bit of chemicals like detergents to get things clean. Maybe it's some other device for smaller faster loads.
Cleaning a straw properly, _drying_ it properly. That sounds like a giant pain. Potentially a massive liability. (Detergents stuck in the straw? Someone's food and diseases not cleaned properly?)
I could see Silicone straws maybe working, but not as well in a lot of respects. They'd need a specialized cleaning process. Maybe boil in water with something to force (and measure) water flow through them. Then transfer to a baking chamber to dry and sanitize with heat. This sounds labor and energy intensive. Just gut instinct, I'm pretty sure it'd be cheaper to use some of that industrial compostable plastic to make a plastic straw. If some paper straw that didn't suck (as outlined in my other post) were used instead that'd be OK too.
