How do you make plastic straws?

Sustainability: Are Americans really using 500 million plastic straws daily?

• According to the source, the average American uses 40,000 straws in a lifetime.  The source is SimplyStraws, http://simplystraws.com/plastic-facts , and the number is repeated in this article:  http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2012/0706/A-10-year-old-urges-restaurants-to-be-straw-free The website does not provide a source for this number.  It seemingly does not include juice boxes and milk cartons with attached straws.  Where does this number come from, and is it accurate? For perspective, if I used one straw every day from birth to age eighty, I would use 29,200 straws.

• Answer:

  That number is hard to believe. I, for one example, have not used any sort of drinking or mixing straw in the last... probably... twenty-five years. We keep several cleanable/reusable straws for the tiny grandkids.