Typhoo Decaf Tea, 80-Count Tea Bags (Pack Of 2)

Product Information

Australian brand T2 reached the UK in 2014 and has quite a few High St stores dotted around the UK. I would say T2 is perhaps best known for its loose-leaf tea selection. However, its range of pyramid teabags is made from PLA for a more sustainable cup of tea. Teapigs Heat sealing the bags like this means that the teabags won’t come open in the box, or in your cup. It also means that these tea bags aren’t 100% biodegradable.This is a problem in that those tea bags you are composting are leaving bits of microplastic in the soil. What Is Microplastic?

How much damage can a teabag do, you may be wondering? Well, one teabag alone will do very little damage. However, when you consider that in the UK alone we drink more than 60 billion cups of tea a year, then it’s a lot of teabags and a whole lot more microplastic. Unilever-owned Pukka makes organic and fairly sourced herbal teas. Its string and tag teabags have always been plastic and PLA-free. However, each individual bag used to come wrapped in an unrecyclable plastic-lined envelope. The good news is that Pukka has taken its environmental responsibilities seriously, and now uses widely recyclable envelopes. Roqberry Lidl’s pyramid teabags are made from PLA, making them industrially compostable. However, the rest of its teabags are sealed using polypropylene. I can’t find any details to say that they looking to switch to more sustainable options, which is a disappointing step by Lidl. Marks & Spencer It’s a bit of a mixed bag at Waitrose. So far it appears its own brand of caffeinated tea bags is made from PLA, so can be disposed of in your food waste bin. However, it appears its own brand decaf tea range is not currently plastic-free. To Conclude The Plastic-Free Teabag Conversation Roqberry’s flavourful fruit and herbal infusions come in PLA plastic-based pyramids. From banana-flavoured tea to blueberry, these unique tea blends tread lightly on the planet. Sainsbury’sAs of May 2023, many teabags from big-name brands still contain plastic. These include the following brands. Lidl Hampstead Tea has a long history of sustainability. It was the first tea manufacturer to introduce stitched teabags rather than heat-sealed teabags. As such, its teabags have always been home-compostable.

Microplastic is a huge problem, that is still being understood by scientists today. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic, less than 5 mm long. In this guide to teabags without plastic, you’ll see a lot of discussion around PLA. PLA stands for Polylactic Acid. PLA teabags are technically not plastic-free, as they are made from plant-based plastics. It is often referred to as a bio-plastic. This simply means the plastic does not come from a fossil fuel-based source. If you want to know more, do read my guide on what is PLA and is it biodegradable for a more detailed deep dive.What we know is that microplastics are found in the soil, in the sea, in our drinking water, inside fish and other animals we eat, and even in humans. When microplastics are in the food we eat and the water we drink, this means we are ingesting plastic, and the long-term effects of this are currently unknown.

Neal’s Yard PLA-free teabags are made from natural abaca (a plant from the banana family) and are oxygen-bleached. This method is chlorine-free and kind to the environment. As such these plastic-free teabags can go straight into your home composter. NemiI tweeted Twinings to ask about the plastic in their tea in January 2021 and they told me “ More than two-thirds of our products are loose-leaf or made using plant-based teabags & we’re working on switching the rest of our bags to a plant-based design. This will be completed in the next 6 months”. I haven’t been able to find any information which suggests that Morrisons’ own-brand teabags are plastic-free. This means that for now, Morrisons is on the list of teabags that do contain plastic, until I hear otherwise. Tesco