Kickstart: A day to celebrate straws

The holidays aren't over yet apparently, because it's National Straw Day Eve! Which means, well, not very much.

Jan. 3 is listed by the National Day Calendar, a private group that accepts submissions to mark specific days on the calendar as a celebration of businesses, organizations, events and products. National Straw Day is on Jan. 3 in recognition of the day Marvin C. Stone received a patent for the paper straw in 1886, although the National Day Calendar website notes that natural materials such as bamboo have been used to help humans drink for millennia.

National Straw Day, the website notes, is a day to "enjoy your favorite beverage while using a drinking straw," adding later that while there are a variety of other materials for straws that "many makers of plastic straws make reusable, collapsible straws too."

National Day Calendar has been promoting unofficial national days since 2013 with National Popcorn Day.

Jan. 3 doesn't belong exclusively to straws. It is also National Chocolate Covered Cherry Day. (And in addition to New Year's Day, Jan. 1 is also National Bloody Mary Day and National Hangover Day, which sounds appropriate)

And, just to keep things interesting, the group also notes that National Skip the Straw Day is the last Friday in February.

Santa dropped quite a big gift in Jim Ratcliffe's stocking on Christmas Eve.

Ratcliffe — CEO of materials company Ineos and one of the world's richest men, with an estimated net worth of more than $35 billion — sealed a deal Dec. 24 to buy a 25 percent stake in Manchester United, his hometown soccer club (which also happens to be a mainstay in the English Premiere League).

Plastics News correspondent Stephen Downer writes that Ratcliffe is buying the Glazer family's shares in the club. The family, a real estate developer focused on shopping malls, has had an ownership in Manchester United for 20 years.

Ineos and Ratcliffe have a deep interest in sponsoring and owning sports teams, with investments in professional cycling, rugby, Formula 1 racing and sailing. It was also the prime backer of Eliud Kipchoge's 2019 sub-two-hour marathon distance run. The 1:59.40.2 finish time does not count as a world record because it was not part of an official marathon.

Pipe extruder Springfield Plastics Inc. and its community in central Illinois kept up their giving tradition in 2023, presenting the Simmons Cancer Institute at SIU Medicine in Springfield with a check for more than $153,000 from its annual Drain for a Cure fundraising campaign.

During the past 10 years, the effort has now raised $850,000 for the institute.

SPI, a manufacturer of high density polyethylene drainage pipe for agriculture, residential, commercial and highway projects based in Auburn, Ill., has been able to aid patients and families. PN's Catherine Kavanaugh wrote in 2022 that the cancer center used Drain for the Cure donations to improve patient access to a second-story entry area for infusions.

"Unfortunately, cancer is so widespread, every single person has a story about why they are ready to support the cause," SPI Vice President Jennifer Furkin said at the time.