Teabags were SO 20th century

Here's the latest in the teabag saga with the latest feedback from Yorkshire tea. Slightly terse maybe, but I liked the use of "certainly pass this on".




2009/11/24 Customer Services </CUSTOMER.SERVICES@BETTYSANDTAYLORS.CO.UK>

Dear Nick,

Thank you for your reply, we are very pleased to hear you have been happy with our response, thank you for your comments regarding our teabag paper we will certainly pass this on.

Kind regards

Danielle Cooper

Customer Services

Taylors of Harrogate

Freephone 0500 418898

customer.services@bettysandtaylors.co.uk
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MY RESPONSE

Thank you for your response.To clarify, it was the style of your response which I liked. You did appear to realise the heavy "greenwash" of suggesting that polypropylene fibres binding soil together was some sort of plus!

Perhaps you could keep me informed of any management plans or activity related to efforts to resolve this unwelcome plastic residue situation? It has become very obvious that this issue is barely known or understood by consumers. I think it fair to say it is a breaking story and when it is fully publicised, it is likely that there will be louder calls for action.

As your particular tea is my all time favourite for "getting through the day", I would hope that, if there is going to be a major move towards fully compostable teabag paper amongst the large tea retailers, that your company would be the first to declare their plans to get the benefit of being the "first mover" and possibly attracting the custom of people ready and willing to change their teabags for the environment.

I note, from your website, that you supply your tea in loose leaf format so I will probably seek that out in the interim, although I do not recall seeing it on sale in Jersey before.

sincerely,

Nick Palmer

On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it

Blogspot - Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer
http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com

Teabags just won’t go away

Back in May I did a post on the problems that composting teabags, particularly in a wormery, bring. Since then I have been bringing this issue to the attention of various bloggers and sites interested in zero waste, composting and organic growing.
Recently, I emailed some of the larger teabag manufacturers to see what they had to say about this. I reproduce my emails to, and the replies from, Yorkshire tea, Tetley and PG Tips (slightly edited to remove spaces, some empty lines etc). It seems that if you buy mainstream brands of teabags, then they all will have plastic in them. As the story develops I will do further posts.
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TO YORKSHIRE TEA
Hi,
Could you confirm that your range of tea bags use a percentage of plastic fibres in them to enable heat sealing?
I discovered the problem with this when worm composting my kitchen waste.
Here is a link to a blogpost I did on this topic
http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com/2009/05/worms-tea-bags-and-tissues.html
I have been posting about this problem in the blogosphere and things are "hotting up".
Here is a post today from coopette at AKG
http://coopette.com/blog/tea-break
Is there another method of teabag manufacture that makes a completely degradable bag, whether conventionally composted or in a wormery?
sincerely,
Nick Palmer
For the planet - and the people - because they're worth it
blogspot: "Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer"
http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com
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REPLY
Dear Mr Palmer
Thank you for your e-mail. The links to the blogs were very interesting.
Our teabag paper (and that of all the major teabag brands) is a mixed fibre. We don't have the exact recipe as this is determined by our suppliers. They use a blend of wood pulps and other biodegradable fibres to make the bulk of the paper. They add a very small amount of polypropylene (about 3%) to make the paper heat sealable.
As you are no doubt aware, legislation says that provided an item is 95% degradable, then it is classed as compostable. The amount of polypropylene in teabag paper is much less than this, so from a legal point of view teabag paper is compostable.
This doesn't answer all the concerns that we have may have though!
Basically polypropylene is inert and does not react with or damage plants or animals. There is some argument that says that polypropylene fibre can help soil bind together and aid water retention in soil, but the amounts of polypropylene that you would compost via teabags would really not register in a typical garden.
I do hope this helps. If we can be of further help, please do contact us again.
Regards
Alison Hampshire
Customer Services
Taylors of Harrogate
Freephone 0500 418898
customer.services@bettysandtaylors.co.uk
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MY RESPONSE
Dear Yorkshire Tea,
Firstly I must say that your reply was probably the most informative of the replies to my query. Those from PG tips and Tetley were less than satisfactory. You can read them, and my responses, on my latest blogpost "teabags just won't go away"
3% may appear to be a small amount. Because the polypropylene effectively never degrades, however, it continually builds up - this goes against the basic principles of sustainability. Every thirty tea bags used is the equivalent of a whole one totally made of plastic. The effect is particularly obvious and intrusive in wormeries, which more and more people are purchasing as part of an effort to go “zero waste” for landfill or incineration or to make their own organic compost. Take it from me, these plastic nets are an obvious problem in wormeries.
As you have seen, I run a sustainability blog and an occasional environmental consultancy (Forskitt, Palmer and Perkins) so I have to suggest that any manufacturing policy that leads to a build up in the soil of non biodegradeable plastic is not ultimately sustainable and is not likely to be in the future of tea retailing. This is the sort of environmental information that people need to know. Until I found out I, like everybody else, just assumed that teabags were completely compostable. Perhaps your company needs to look at sourcing completely biodegradeable teabag paper?
sincerely,
Nick Palmer
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TETLEY TEA
Hi,
Firstly, let me congratulate you on your sustainable/fair trade type policies. As you can see from my sign off I write a sustainability blog and I would like to ask you if the teabag paper that you use is fully biodegradable in a compost heap or wormery? I ask for the following reason. After several years of composting teabags in my wormery, I noticed a "net" of teabag "ghosts" building up which proved to be indigestible plastic residue. Perhaps it is easiest if you look at a blog post I did about this for more details .
nickpalmer.blogspot.com/2009/05/worms-tea-bags-and-tissues.html
This problem does not seem to be known at all in the composting fraternity and I am almost fighting a one-man campaign at the moment. Emma Cooper at the respected and widely read alternative kitchen garden and coopette.com blogs has just done a post based on my observations.
coopette.com/blog/tea-break
Nowadays, many people are trying to reduce their domestic waste and are trying to compost as much as they can so having plastic residue in their organic compost is not welcome.
Thanking you in advance.
Nick Palmer
On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it
Blogspot - Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer nickpalmer.blogspot.com
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REPLY
Dear Nick,
Thanks for your email. The material used to make the actual tea bag is a mixture of mainly cellulose fibres and a small amount of polypropylene fibres to give the heat seal. Under normal composting conditions the cellulose fibres will break down, as will the tea, leaving the very small polypropylene fibres which are normally so small they are not seen. It does however take a reasonable amount of time to do this and really needs to be placed into a proper compost heap.
If it has not broken down it may be because:
It has not been left long enough
It hasn't spent enough time at the centre of the heap where the temperature is higher
It has been put on the garden, not on a compost heap
It hasn't been mixed with enough vegetable or organic matter
The worm population is not high enough
Hope this helps
Kind regards
Sue
Tetley GB Consumer Services
Discover more about Tetley by visiting www.tetley.co.uk or www.tetley.com
Find out about our membership of www.ethicalteapartnership.org working for a responsible tea industry
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MY RESPONSE
Dear Sue,
Perhaps you did not read my email or blogpost carefully enough otherwise you would not have replied with a P.R. "spin" type answer.
The facts are the plastic residue fibres that form the tea bag "ghost" net are not "normally so small they are not seen" - they are quite obvious. In a standard compost heap they are not easily seen because the turning process etc scrunches them up and "dirties" them by covering them with dark soil. Nevertheless, if you know they're there, they can be found. People do not want plastic in their compost.
As regards your advice, which clearly suggests you think I don't know the techniques of composting - I write a sustainability blog, don't you think it highly unlikely that I wouldn't know how to compost properly? In my wormery, which incidentally has a very high worm population, the worms rapidly eat the cellulose fibres, and the tea leaves, but leave the plastic - several years later, unsurprisingly, they have still not eaten the plastic and it has built up into impenetrable (for the worms) layers. I can tell you that unless you have plans to replace the plastic with something else natural, or a bioplastic that degrades to naturally occurring ingredients that worms can digest, you will be hearing more from the zero waste/sustainability/green movement.
sincerely,
Nick Palmer
For the planet - and the people - because they're worth it
blogspot "Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer" http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com
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PG TIPS TEA
Hi,
Firstly, let me congratulate you and monkey on your sustainable/fair trade type policies. As you can see from my sign off I write a sustainability blog and I would like to ask you if the teabag paper that you use is fully biodegradable in a compost heap or wormery? I ask for the following reason. After several years of composting teabags in my wormery, I noticed a "net" of teabag "ghosts" building up which proved to be indigestible plastic residue. Perhaps it is easiest if you look at a blog post I did about this for more details.
http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com/2009/05/worms-tea-bags-and-tissues.html
This problem does not seem to be known at all in the composting fraternity and I am almost fighting a one-man campaign at the moment. Emma Cooper at the respected and widely read alternative kitchen garden and coopette.com blogs has just done a post based on my observations.
http://coopette.com/blog/tea-break
Nowadays, many people are trying to reduce their domestic waste and are trying to compost as much as they can so having plastic residue in their organic compost is not welcome.
Thanking you in advance.
Nick Palmer
On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it
Blogspot - Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer
http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com
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REPLY
Hello from PG tips!
Dear Nick,
Thank you for your recent email.
In response to your query I would like to inform you that Pg tips are They are made of fibres and are bio-degradable and they can be made into compost. I hope this information will be of great use to you and thank you again for taking the time to contact us.
Kind regards,
Shabana Kausar
Careline Advisor
Unilever UK Limited Registered in England & Wales;
Company No 334527
Registered Office: Unilever House, Springfield Drive, Leatherhead, KT22 7GR
Unilever Ireland
Registered Office: 20 Riverwalk, National Digital Park, Citywest Business
Campus, Dublin 24
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MY RESPONSE
Dear PG tips,
If you had read my email, or my blogpost, properly you
would have realised that I already knew that the majority of a tea bag is compostable! I was referring to the plastic fibres that are a percentage of the teabag paper. These fibres, that are used for heatsealing the bag during manufacture are not biodegradeable and remain as a plastic residue which is not acceptable in compost. Please rethink your reply as it is not satisfactory. Your replies will be going on my blog and will be passed on to several other high profile ones too.
sincerely,
Nick Palmer
On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it
Blogspot - Sustainability and stuff according to Nick Palmer
http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com
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Tea bags, muck and magic, Bounty and polyester

I am revisiting the subject of this post from May - worms tea bags and tissues - because I have a little more to add.

Most people who aspire to live more sustainable lives recycle, reuse or compost as much of their "waste" as they can and after starting on garden waste some end up composting their kitchen waste too. A while ago I became concerned about composting tea bags because I discovered that they are not "pure" paper but contain a percentage of plastic. Not a lot of people know that. Just about all tea bags have a polyester additive in the paper so they can be heat sealed in manufacture. When they are composted they leave behind a faint polyester skeleton which is particularly obvious in wormeries where it can build up over a year or so to make almost impenetrable (for the worms) layers. I haven't seen any other web site that mentions composting (even CAT - Centre for Alternative Technology - the last time I looked) that seems aware of this plastic contamination from tea bags because they all apparently recommend composting them whole. Since I found out, I tear the bag (when cooled) and tip the leaves into the compost and throw the bag into the bin.

I noticed a while ago that Co-op facial tissues, in addition to wood pulp, have a "wet strength additive". Apparently most, if not all, products like this have these additives, which are a form of resin. I phoned up the Co-op's freephone number to find out what this substance does when the tissue is composted and although I didn't find out exactly what it breaks down to, because I never got direct access to their technical guys, their customer service people, specifically Natalie, did say CO2, water and "biomass".

"Tough" kitchen rolls like Bounty A.K.A Plenty presumably contain either more of this "wet strength" additive or a different one. I am investigating whether this type of paper can be composted safely and will post again when I get a firm answer

Worms, tea bags and tissues

I mostly concentrate on the “big” international issues of sustainability but here’s a few words on composting and wormeries.

Just about every site on worm composting tells you to compost your teabags – ditto if you just have a normal compost heap.  Despite a lot of Googling I have not yet found anyone else who has spotted the following aspect.

After a few years of composting my kitchen waste in my wormery, I spotted that there was a layer of “net” forming in the worm compost and it proved to be “skeletons” of tea bags. I phoned up a couple of tea bag makers and discovered that, although mostly paper fibres, the manufacturers include a small percentage of polyester fibres in the bag material. This is to enable the bag to be heat sealed when they press the two halves together.

Although the worms do a good job of eating the tea leaves and the paper part of the bag , they obviously leave the polyester alone and it builds up to form an indigestible, non-compostable layer. The same thing happens in a conventional compost heap but the scrap of polyester is almost unnoticeable. Most people who want to make organic compost would not like this plastic residue in it so the solution is to rip your tea bags and pour the contents into your worm caddy or big compost heap and (sadly) put the actual bag into the rubbish. It’s easiest to do this when they have cooled down or dried out (if you have the patience).

I think readers should spread this news or we are going to have veggie patches full of increasing amounts of polyester!

I recently discovered that most facial tissues these days have temporary “wet strength” additives. I have a done a little research on this and the additive appears to be a polymer resin that does break down after it has done its job. So far, I can’t find out definitively if the break-down products of the polymer are helpful, bad or indifferent to making good compost so I’ll carry on researching until I find out (when I get some time). I’ll report back here then. I note that “Bounty” kitchen roll (recently renamed Plenty) is now supposed to stay strong so I suspect they have used a permanent wet strength additive that will not break down.