An estimated 63 to 142 billion drinking straws are used in the United States annually, contributing to the approximately 19 billion $USD drinking straw market. Complementary to their significant usage, drinking straws are a common, visibly jarring marine litter, accounting for approximately 5% of all shoreline and nearshore debris. Because of this and their potential to harm charismatic megafauna, municipalities, states, and countries have begun restricting conventional polypropylene (PP) single-use straws in favor of those made from materials marketed as more degradable. Major brands have started adopting many of these bioplastic alternatives as they increasingly require the plastics they use to be biodegradable in all natural environments. Yet, these regulatory and material selection decisions have lacked robust data to support them. The environmental lifetimes of single-use drinking straws and the biodegradation rates of their materials in the marine environment are uncertain. Unsubstantiated estimates for PP straws range from 100 to 700 years. To date, the environmental lifetimes of commercial drinking straws in the coastal ocean are poorly characterized, and the controls on their environmental lifetimes are unknown, including the microbial communities that degrade them.