Microplastic-Free Steeping Solutions
Your elegant tea pyramid or tea bag contains much more than meets the eye ~ it’s alarming and at this year’s World Tea Expo the alarm bells sounded!
As we pause to participate in Earth Day actions, I thought it was the perfect time to share some of the most alarming information I gathered at this year’s World Tea Expo. You’ve heard me say that I believe tea is magic, that it is a healer, a grounder and a lovely pause in each day but what about the quick tea on-the-go ~ a tea bag steeped cup? What’s in that quick, convenient cup of tea may be harming you and is definitely hurting our planet. Steeped into your quick cup of tea is likely a hefty dose of microplastics.
The researchers from microplasticfree.org, were asked to test tea bags and report to our conference. Their findings were alarming! The amount of microplastic that leaches from a tea bag or tea pyramid into a cup of tea is 600x (times) higher than the plastic that leaches into a plastic water bottle left in your car on a hot day, or in transit to the store for that matter! The discouraging news is that so called safe bio-plastic pyramids leached the highest levels of microplastics during the steeping process due to their *low-melting points ~ *when a substance changes from solid to liquid at a relatively low temperature. Even the humble paper tea bag was implicated.
I’ll share that the anguish felt in the conference room was palpable. How could bio-plastics and even paper tea bags steep microplastics into a cup of tea?
Even when the tea bag material is safer, the manner in which they are sealed are also a source of microplastics. All heat seals by definition use plastic to create a seal. Adhesives often use a plastic binding agent with heat to create a seal. One of the safest, watch out for staples with a layer of plastic on the outside. Sewn is among the safest, watch out for polymer based thread. The companies who use these materials may be victims of Greenwashing in their supply chain so it is most likely unintentional.
In an effort to ensure that all of our Teadaytea product offerings are safe, and wanting to become a micro-free certified company, we recently sent samples of the tea filters we sell and our packaging to be tested by the scientists at microplasticfree.org. We’ll let you know what we find out.
Why it matters.
At Teadaytea we are committed to selling loose-leaf tea. Our laser focus is all about health and well-being through tea. So please take the extra two-minutes it takes to steep your tea in a sus304 food-grade stainless steel steeping basket like we sell.
Here’s to striving to improve our planet, and our well-being by controlling what we can in our little sphere of influence.
Namaste,
Nicole
