Well you could change culture. In my country straws aren't used much. You don't need a straw to drink. In fact I only see expats drink coffee with a straw.
If you want to consume a beverage while driving, a covered cup with a straw is much easier.
(One could now say “Americans shouldn’t drive so much!” or “don’t consume food while driving”, I guess. We should probably also build more dense housing in walkable neighborhoods, invest in mass transit, and shorten commutes and working hours so everybody has time for a leisurely breakfast at the neighborhood cafe.)
The other one does not offer stoppers. So I have to improvise with either wooden stirrers or plastic (for now) straws. The wooden stirrers don't fill the sipping hole entirely but they do enough to the movement of the coffee that I don't have to worry about coffee sloshing out. But they make the coffee taste like wood. So I use a plastic straw. At first I took their advice and did not drink through the straw. But if the coffee has cooled sufficiently to be sipped carelessly, it can be sipped through a straw.
Here's an idea. An autoclave, IV hardware, and coffee sold to the public in pouches. The hardware is reused with the help of the autoclave.
C'mon Starbucks, with all your profits, you can do better than this.
it helps, whether good dental care or not, to find ways to prevent staining your teeth as part of regular, daily routine
No more soda, no more coffee, no more stains, no more jitters. Detox is unpleasant but only takes a couple days. The cravings never go away though.
Straws really are only necessary with extremely elderly people, the sick and young children wherever one can't reliably lift the cup to their lips because of limited motor skills. Or perhaps in the USA where people drink 32 OZ beverages from a bucket that is liable to spill because of the waves caused by the ice cubes bobbing around in it.