Making pillows out of straws: a Chiang Mai municipality pedals ahead with recycling
A municipality in Chiang Mai province has claimed success in turning recycled drinking straws into pillows for distribution to the area's bed-ridden patients and elderly persons as part of its attempts to promote recycling and tackling garbage issues.
The Nakhon Chiang Mai Municipality in Muang district revealed its plan in the near future to also make mattresses of the same material for distribution.
Health and Environment Division acting director Pisal Phanthuseni said the recycling of drinking straws to make hypo-allergenic pillows that relieve neck muscle strain for some 100 bed-ridden patients and elderly persons had been successful. They used about 132,000 straws donated by 50 coffee shops, school canteens and restaurants in making 62 washable pillows, 22 of which had already been handed out while the balance 40 would be handed over on August 12, he said.
The straws were cleaned with disinfectants and sun-dried before being chopped into one-centimetre-long pieces to be stuff in the pillows. Each pillow requires 2,200 straws, he explained. He said the project, which now had steady supplies from various business operators, would continue and in the near-future expand to the making of mattresses for distribution to the area's bed-ridden patients and elderly persons, he added.