Brewing Tea with Zero Waste and NO Plastic! (Wait There's Plastic in Tea?)
Updated: November 2019
Nothing is better than unwinding at the end of a long day with a hot cup of tea, until you realize that that tea could be filled with millions of tiny microplastic particles. With more and more information coming to light about microplastics, their presence in our lives, and their harmful effects on the planet, it’s necessary that we take preventative measures to keep them out of our lives.
A shocking amount of tea bags are made with plastic fabrics like nylon or polyester, either in the bag itself or in the attached string. This encompasses almost every brand, from restaurant quality high end teas to dollar store finds.
These plastic materials will contaminate your at-home compost, as the bags won’t break down into natural fibers, only into microplastics that are irretrievable in the soil.
As someone who loves tea and has been (mistakenly) composting ALL tea bags for many years, this is very disappointing to learn. It’s a step backward in our efforts to avoid plastics and move toward a zero-waste lifestyle. Let’s take a closer look at these facts regarding plastics within tea bags.
Tea bags currently in our pantry
Excess packaging and hidden plastics are almost unavoidable in most store bought teas. The individual packaging for each tea bag in plastic or foil pouches are destined for landfill, as they are neither compostable nor recyclable, and have no reusable qualities. Additionally, most used tea bags are often not compostable, as the straining bag or string are deceptively made of plastic fabrics. Bags without strings and staples are often held together with a plastic glue, which can also leach chemicals into your home compost or not break down completely.
My experience composting used tea bags
For years, I’ve been putting our used tea bags into our at home composting system, thinking that the bags were all paper and would break down with the rest of our food waste. When using the last batch of compost to replant some vegetables, there was a shocking amount of tea bags that had not broken down at all. These bags, I discovered are made of nylon, polyester, or another synthetic fabric, and not the biodegradable paper that I had assumed. The bag on the left spent about 6 months in the composter, you can still see the string (probably polyester) and part of the tag. When using the compost, I always pick out any plastic junk that accidently went in (those little plastic stickers on produce are the worst). I obviously missed one pouch and found it in a container that I was replanting (bag on the right), with plant roots growing right through the material to get to the tea inside! This is what you get when you compost plastic!
Interested in starting your own at-home compost system? Check out our article all about making your own compost!
Tea bags found in composter and container soil
A great article about plastic in your tea
The Green Shopper has a great blog article, “The Compost Catastrophe or A Teeny Tiny Storm in a Teacup”, and the graphic below outlining these challenges in much greater detail. They have links to a number of efforts to convince tea companies to clean up their act, please check it out and help support these efforts!
Infographic by thegreenshopper.co.uk
There is an easy solution to this mess!
The good news is we have a new set of organic cotton reusable straining bags, including one sized perfect for steeping tea. This makes it very easy to still enjoy home brewed tea, while staying completely zero-waste and plastic free. With the recent revelations about plastic contents in tea bags, there’s even more reasons to dump disposables and move to loose-leaf tea and reusable straining bags! Made of 100% GOTS Certified Organic Cotton, this bag is completely plastic free and will last you for years, allowing you to enjoy your tea free of any microplastic particles!
Zero Waste, Plastic-Free Tea is as easy as 1-2-3
Here’s a short video to illustrate just how easy zero waste, no plastic tea brewing can be. Check it out and get brewing!
