US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order ending the US government’s efforts to replace plastic straws with paper ones.

The order, which takes effect immediately, reverses a measure signed by former President Joe Biden, who called plastic pollution a “crisis”.

Last week, Trump – who marketed branded plastic straws during the 2020 election campaign – said paper straws “don’t work” and “disgustingly” melt in consumers’ mouths.

In 2024, Biden ordered the U.S. government to phase out plastic straws, as well as plastic cutlery and packaging.

Trump’s order would require government agencies to stop buying paper straws and seek a strategy to eliminate them nationwide.

“We’re going back to plastic straws,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.

“These things don’t work, I’ve seen them many times, sometimes they break, they explode. If something gets hot, they don’t last long, like a few minutes, maybe a few seconds. It’s ridiculous,” Trump said.

As part of a broader effort to target plastic pollution, the Biden administration announced last year that it would phase out single-use plastics from food packaging, operations and events by 2027 and from all federal operations by 2035.

Trump has been a longtime critic of paper straws.

During his 2020 reelection campaign, which he ultimately lost, he marketed “Trump”-branded plastic straws — for $15 for a pack of 10 — as a replacement for what he called “liberal” paper straws.

Overall, the campaign reportedly made nearly $500,000 from straw sales in its first few weeks alone.

Some estimates put the number of disposable drinking straws used in the United States at around 500 million per day — but that figure is hotly disputed, and the actual total could be as much as half that.

A number of U.S. cities and states, including Seattle, Washington; California; Oregon; and New Jersey, are restricting the use of plastic straws or requiring businesses to provide them only after customers request them.

United Nations Environment Program statistics show that 460 million metric tons of plastic are produced each year, contributing to marine debris and microplastics that affect human health.

However, some studies have shown that paper straws contain significant amounts of “persistent chemicals” such as polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

PFAS can persist in the environment for decades, contaminating water supplies and causing a variety of health problems.