Paper Sticks: The Key to Cotton Swabs and Lollipops

Some manufacturers have used plastic sticks for cotton swabs and food products, as they believed plastic to be a safer and more hardness alternative to paper. But consumers found that broken plastic sticks could be harmful to the soft tissue in ear canals and mouths.

Unlike plastic, paper sticks have no sharp edges or serrated surfaces if they're chewed. They won't break or splinter. They are also fully biodegradable, so they don't pose an environmental risk. And rather than using a petroleum by product, sticks can be made from a clean, renewable source.

The environmental benefits have swayed other companies to return to paper sticks. The London Daily Telegraph reported earlier this year that pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson is returning to using paper sticks in its cotton swabs to reduce the waste that enters waterways. Ten percent of the more than 300 million tons of plastic are produced annually ends up polluting waterways and oceans.

The return to safe, biodegradable paper sticks comes as no surprise to the makers of stick paper, including Domtar.

"Too many people flush the sticks down the toilet, so they go through the waste water treatment and wind up in our waterways,” Gagner said. “It's just another reason paper is better.”