Plastic varieties can take centuries to decompose into particles, while newer versions are designed to quickly biodegradeFor bubble tea buff Ding Yi, it's the third time this week that his drink tasted like wet cardboard, with the culprit being a paper straw.

"Although we only use plastic straws for a few moments, it can take hundreds of years for them to decompose.

However, plastics decompose extremely slowly in soil.

When dumping plastics into landfills, they usually decompose into nano-sized plastic particles.