IMPORTANT: Tea Bags

[bikermike]

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...adable-teabags

PG say they are on their way to getting plastic out of teabags, which is good news for compost.

[Thelma Sanders]

Shame I really don't like PG

[veggiechicken]

I don't drink tea so.............Serious question here - why don't people use teaballs instead of teabags? Or even................teapots?

Like this


I have one of these from way back!!

[Thelma Sanders]

why don't people use teaballs instead of teabags?

Because there is only a very limited range of looseleaf tea available in the shops?

[bikermike]

I don't drink tea so.............Serious question here - why don't people use teaballs instead of teabags? Or even................teapots?

Like this


I have one of these from way back!!

hassle. With a teabag its:
put teabag in cup
add water
remove teabag
milk/etc to taste
drink

With a teaball it's
check teaball is clean
add tea (risk of spilling, faff)
make tea
take hot teaball and empty hot wet tea leaves into something
milk etc, drink
clean up teaball.

also, unless you have a large number of balls (ooo-err), it's not as scaleable.

I have a teaball and have used it, but for lack of faff, teabags win out...

[Jay-ell]

Of course the teabag was invented by Thomas Sullivan by accident.

I sometime use the infuser but loose leaf ea isn't as widely available and my stock of orange pekoe is going down.

There's a difference between biodegradable and compostable. Even the teabags and plastics used at the minute will biodegrade in a few hundred or thousand years. The biodegradable plastics available now need certain conditions to break down quickly - stick some biodegradable plastic cutlery in your compost bin and the chances are they will be exactly the same in a couple of yeas time.

Although it says that the new bags will be made of plant based products remember that cellophane is made from the cellulose from plants but doesn't break down very quickly in a compost bit.

[Snoop Puss]

I was shocked by this news as I thought teabags were already plastic-free. I've been bunging them in the compost and used to chuck them in the wormery when I had one. Gah!

[bikermike]

I chuck them in compost on the basis that the additional biomass is probably better (and worms do love them, I once picked out a fresh-ish tea-bag with 5 worms poking out...).

there's only a small amount of plastic in any given tea-bag, so if they can replace that with something that will (eventually) break down, it's good win.

Just need to see if SWMBO will drink PG (or one of the other brands mentioned as following close behind)

[veggiechicken]

I was shocked by this news as I thought teabags were already plastic-free. I've been bunging them in the compost and used to chuck them in the wormery when I had one. Gah!

I agree, Snoop. I assumed they were some sort of paper or cloth - certainly not plastic. Maybe they were once?
One wonders how much the plastic affects the taste?

Interesting blog about different brands and their use of polypropylene to seal the teabags.
http://moralfibres.co.uk/is-there-plastic-in-your-tea/

[Jay-ell]

The original teabags were silk, then cotton gauze and then paper. A coating was later added to the paper to improve the bags robustness and stop them splitting. It's this coating that prevents the decomposition.

[Chris11]

Heard about this a while back, and wasn't surprised as I've picked a few old tea bags out of the compost that hadn't broken down. Also read about it elsewhere, and signed the petitions that have contributed to recent announcements from PG Tips, which is very welcome. The new tea bags will likely have corn starch replacing the plastic, probably similar to corn starch 'plastic' used for biodegradeable carrier bags.

[bikermike]

I'm hoping that Twinings will hurry up and come on board.

[boatsman]

I let the teabags dry and then pour the contents into a plastic drum I use to save tea leaves. I've always considered tea bags to be the equivalent of Woodbine cigarettes, the sweepings from the floor of the packing room!

[Bren In Pots]

I let the teabags dry and then pour the contents into a plastic drum I use to save tea leaves. I've always considered tea bags to be the equivalent of Woodbine cigarettes, the sweepings from the floor of the packing room!

That's what my gran used to say about tea bags, so I've followed on from her and my Mum by buying Co-op 99 loose leaf tea. It makes a lovely drink

[lottieguy]

Hi Ya, I have composting teabags for years and never had any problems. When the compost is emptied there are never any signs of plastic or any other detrimental items. I choose teabags carefully as some taste better to me than others that I would agree were the sweepings of the floor. I must admit that bags are more convenient but I will look for loose tea next time out shopping. It's like the the glass milk bottle saga in that they have got us to believe it is easier to produce plastic bottles than glass and cheaper. That they pay the poor farmers next to nothing for the milk is nothing to do with it. A friend was telling me that he bought a 25kg bag of spuds from a farm and cost him £10, later he saw in a well known superstore 2.5kg of the same spuds for sale at 25p. The spuds were from the same company, Redmire farms, so who is conning who here. These are only things that spring to mind I bet there are a load more incidents. I still try to get my head round how come a garage charges 10p more per gallon of fuel than one a mile away and both are the same company. Oh well one day all will be sorted or not.