Topic: Composting Teabags

[:(]

Just reading a bit in Which that says that teabags from the likes of Clipper, PG Tips, Tetley, Twinings, Typhoo contain polypropylene which will leave a fine plastic web in your compost. The only one they foound that was fully biodegradable was Jacksons of Picadilly.

[pigeonseed]

!! I had no idea!

[:(]

Me neither. Theres a lot of teabags go in my compost so I think Ill break them open and only compost the contetns in future. The plastic can go in the bin.

[cacran]

That is a worry. I have been composting mine for years. What harm will it do. We use so many, I can't be bothered emptying them all out.

[Old bird]

Is it enough to worry about?  I dread to think!  We put the teabags into our mugs and teapots what damage is it doing to us directly?

I am not going to panic and not compost tea bags - unless someone here finds it so terrible that the end of the world will be nigh - I am quite sure something so small that has been boiled and the like can hurt you - otherwise they wouldn't let them be used for tea bags.

O B  :o

[Kepouros]

It has long been established that you can`t make proper tea with teabags, now apparently you can`t make decent compost with them either.

They`re also more expensive than loose leaf tea.

I don`t use `em

[1066]

what's also interesting is that the likes of Clipper Tea using the same stuff as all the others - I thought they were the organic peeps? Tried them once, and did't like them anyway!

[:(]

I am not going to panic and not compost tea bags - unless someone here finds it so terrible that the end of the world will be nigh - I am quite sure something so small that has been boiled and the like can hurt you - otherwise they wouldn't let them be used for tea bags.

O B  :o

I care what i put in my soil and Im not knowingly going to put plastic in. It takes forever to rot down and it looks horrible. We eat and drink a lot of things that have been in plastci containers, that doesnt mean I want them in my soil. Im sure fine plastic webs arent good for wildlife either.

[Bugloss2009]

if when you come to use your compost you can't see any teabags in it, then they've been composted, or at least broken down into tiny pieces. Not a problem

[:(]

The point is they dont break down at least not within the timescale that youd be using your compost. They leave a fine plastic web that Which says you have to pick out.

[katynewbie]

I have composted tea bags for years and have only once found a little web-type thing at the end of the process. Just for the record, I use Sainsbury's Red Label!

[Flighty]

Put a few inches of compost in a pot then add some of your used tea bags, some intact some ripped apart. After twelve months empty it and have a look. A friend has done this twice with various tea bags and found no plastic traces whatsoever.
He kept the other tea bags in a couple of plastic carrier bags and eventually added them to his compost heap once he'd done this test and was happy.

[Old bird]

Hi Weequeenie

I have composted tea bags for many years and I have no visible residues of them.

 I am not saying that there are no traces of plastic in the soil but they will be so so tiny that you probably get more airborne nasties than the odd tea bag which has not been broken down into it.  With the quantities of compost that I do use the scale is infinitesimal anyway so unless I am told that they are cancer forming in their minuteness I am sure that the good stuff far outweighs the paper with however small a quantity of plastic on it.

Considering how much aluminium and the like is in the air from aircraft, exhaust from cars, fire smoke  and the like I think you can overworry yourself with minutiae!

Old Bird

[:(]

I trust Which so Ill go with their advice. I posted it becuase it was news to me and might help others. Everyone makes thier own choice about what they put in thier ground.

[Digeroo]

I have composted teabags for years.  I once had some which left something behind so I changed makes.  You can feel the plastic ones they feel different.

[dtw]

I used PG Tips, they didin't compost at all.
I had to rip open and empty each bag when I came to sieve it.

[lincsyokel2]

It has long been established that you can`t make proper tea with teabags, now apparently you can`t make decent compost with them either.

They`re also more expensive than loose leaf tea.

I don`t use `em

you can only make proper tea using loose leaf in a cona coffee pot:



£100 new, i own 3 different ones..............best tea and coffe you ever tasted.

[tonybloke]

ah yes, but travelling to fortnums for the 'first flushing' is a bit of a drag, eh?

[grannyjanny]

Cona coffee makers, a blast from my past. I used to sell those as a teenager & that's a lot of years ago ;).
What super coffee they make.

[lincsyokel2]

Cona coffee makers, a blast from my past. I used to sell those as a teenager & that's a lot of years ago ;).
What super coffee they make.

there highly collectable. They stopped making them about 15 years ago. The problem is they suffered from 'glass disease', because its cheap soda glass, and not mixed well, and not annealed well, they develop millions of microscopic cracks, and become very very brittle and fragile. Antique mirrors suffer the same problem. Thus all the original ones slowly broke and  vanished by the timethey were 15 years old, and they all bu vanished entirely. Then a company bough the rights and started limited production. The cona above can now be bought for new £80 -£120, which is ten times the price of the original, but they make coffee and tea only bettered by the £4000 Clover device made at Stanford University.