We've bought some silicone straws...

[lucysmam]

But, they taste like silicone. Is there a way to get rid of the taste?

Plastic straws should be available for disability/medical use but no other use. That would cut down plastics use and indeed all other straw use. Every kind of straw requires energy to produce and recycle so just don’t use them.
No child needs to drink though a straw. If a drink is bad for their teeth then don’t let them drink it. That will also cut down on energy use for production of non necessary drinks.
It’s simple, everything requires energy/resources to produce. If you are interested in using less energy/resources then use less “stuff”.

Nearly 45% of all plastics waste in the oceans comes from fishing boats- how many people criticising the use of straws eat fish?

Overfishing is also a much bigger problem for ocean ecosystems than plastic straws.

We have the metal ones and they're fine. Even my hyper sensitive and very accident prone DD (ASD and dyspraxia) gets on with them.

I don't know if you can ever get rid of that silicone taste. Yuck. For what it's worth, I use the straws that come from items like mason jars or novelty kids milk bottle bottles.

They wash great, feel safer to me than terrifying metal straws and aren't smelly like silicone.

www.therange.co.uk/cooking-and-dining/glassware/jars/mason-jar-with-metal-basket/#115841

Ours are bent ones btw so you'd have to fall onto them at a funny angle to impale yourself!