Plastic Is NOT My Cup Of Tea
More companies have begun to package their tea in tea bags made from plastic and, unfortunately, tea is not the only thing that's ending up in your cup.
A December 2024 study by the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) found that tea bags release between 8 million and 1.2 billion microplastic and nanoplastic particles per millimeter of boiling water they're dunked in. These findings are in line with those of other recent studies including a 2019 study done by McGill University in which researchers found that a single tea bag can releases more than 11 billion microplastic and three billion nanoplastic particles per cup.
Even tea packaged in what appears to be a paper tea bag can fill your cup of tea with plastic fibers from the sealant used to glue the paper shut or from a coating on the string.
People who drink tea may be repeatedly dosing themselves with billions of plastic particles, some of which are small enough to infiltrate human cells.
Join Beyond Plastics in letting tea companies know that plastic is NOT your cup of tea and ask them to switch to completely plastic-free packaging.
Research Studies
- 2024 study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653524026377
- 2023 study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389423011822
- 2019 study: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b02540