Wanting to know which teabags without plastic exist in the UK in 2021? I’ve rounded up the best plastic-free teabags and shared the teabags with plastic.
Back in 2017, I wrote about the plastic in teabags. That post had such an impact as many people learned for the first time that teabags contain plastic, alongside a host of other surprising items that contain plastic
Over the last couple of years, I’ve had a lot of requests to update the article, so here we are today! I’ve looked into over 20 teabag brands in the UK, to see what teabags without plastic are available. I’ve also looked into how best to dispose of the bags once you’re done.
Why do teabags contain plastic?
You might be wondering why there is a need for plastic to be found in teabags? Well, plastic (polypropylene to be exact) is added to the paper teabag to help heat seal them during manufacture.
Heat sealing the bags like this means that the teabags won’t come open in the box, or in your cup. It also means though 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?
Microplastic is a huge problem, that is still being understood by scientists today. Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic, less than 5 mm long. 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 that water we drink, this means we are ingesting plastic, and the long-term effects of this are currently unknown.
Microplastic comes from a variety of sources. It can derive from larger plastic debris that has degraded into smaller and smaller pieces. However, it also comes from teabags that have been heat-sealed with plastic, that we have unwittingly composted.
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.
The good news is that since 2017 tea manufacturers have started to remove polypropylene from their teabags. Here is the current situation in the UK:
The Plastic Free Teabags in 2021
teabags without plastic uk
Here are the UK brands that produce plastic-free tea bags. In each case, I’m discussing the bags only, not the packaging.
Before we dive in, let me get you up to speed on some of the terminologies around teabags.
First off, you’ll see some discussion around types of teabags. Here is a visual guide to the types of teabags referred to in this guide.
types of teabags
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.
There are some issues around PLA. Firstly, sometimes the plant material used to produce PLA can be sourced from genetically modified (GM) crops.
Secondly, PLA tea bags are not home compostable. It’s therefore important to dispose of them correctly. If your local council collects your food waste or garden waste bin for industrial composting, they will compost quickly. However, if your council does not collect your food waste, then these teabags perform no differently than conventional oil-based plastic tea bags.
I don’t think PLA is a perfect solution. Like many aspects of sustainability, there are always compromises. However, aside from switching to loose leaf tea en masse, I don’t think there is a perfect solution that could also make tea an affordable daily staple.
Right, now we’re up to speed on all things tea, let’s dive in:
Bird & Blend Tea
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Brighton-based Bird & Blend sells their hand-blended teas in PLA teabags. Or if you want to avoid PLA you can shop for loose leaf tea. Alongside their standard black teas, where Bird & Blend excel is in their unique tea blends. Think Rhubarb & Custard, or Chocolate Digestive flavoured tea for something a little different.
Brew Tea
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
As well as their loose leaf tea selection, Brew Tea swapped over to PLA teabags in September 2017. They then started moving over to plastic-free packaging in 2018. Black tea is Brew Tea’s speciality, but they do carry a small range of fruit and herbal teas.
Clipper
Place in your food waste bin | String and tag teabags home compostable
Back in 2017 people were most shocked by the fact that Clipper’s unbleached organic teabags contained plastic. Thanks to consumer demand, Clipper took action, and switched their pillow teabags to a plant-based PLA over a year ago, sourced from non-GM plant material.
Co-Op Own Brand 99
Place in your food waste bin
Thanks to consumer pressure, The Co-Op switched its own-brand Fairtrade 99 tea over to PLA teabags in 2018.
Eteaket
Place in your food waste bin | loose leaf tea selection
Edinburgh-based Eteaket mainly sells loose-leaf tea. This is packaged in home compostable Natureflex™ bags and cardboard caddies. Their tea is not the cheapest. However, if you already have a caddy, then their loose-leaf tea is also available in 100% plastic-free refill bags, which are a little cheaper.
Whilst their range of teabags is small, their tea bags are made from PLA. These are packed into home compostable Natureflex™ bags, and recyclable cardboard cartons for a lighter carbon footprint.
Good & Proper
Place in your food waste bin |Loose leaf tea selection
Good & Proper’s range of award-winning teas – from their black teas to their range of herbal infusions – come in PLA teabags. If you want to avoid PLA, you can also shop their wide range of tasty loose leaf teas.
Hampstead Tea
Home compostable or can go in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Hampstead Tea has a long history of sustainability. They were the first tea manufacturer to introduce stitched teabags rather than heat-sealed teabags. As such, their teabags have always been home compostable. Rather than resting on their laurels, Hampstead Tea has taken big steps when it comes to the environment. Consequently, the vast majority of their products are plastic-free (aside from their Earl Grey and Green Tea with Jasmine tea bag envelopes).
Neal’s Yard
Home compostable or can go in your food waste bin
Neal’s Yard 100% organic tea bags are FairWild™ certified. This is an international standard that supports the sustainable use of wild-harvested ingredients. It also ensures a fair deal all along the supply chain.
Their 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.
Nemi
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Nemi is a specialist London-based tea company that offers a variety of tea blends, both as loose tea and teabags. As well as selling great-tasting tea, they provide employment to refugees to give them local work experience and job readiness skills to enter the UK workforce and to help them integrate into broader society.
All of their teabags are made from PLA. What’s more, their packaging is compostable, and their teas are organic, fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance certified. Their packaging is pretty funky too.
PG Tips
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Unilever-owned PG Tips made the switch to PLA a couple of years ago thanks to consumer pressure. Now their entire range can be industrially composted via your food waste bin.
Pukka
Home compostable or can go in your food waste bin
Unilever-owned Pukka makes organic and fairly sourced herbal teas. Their 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 their environmental responsibilities seriously, and now use widely recyclable envelopes.
Roqberry
Place in your food waste bin
Roqberry’s flavourful fruit and herbal infusions come in PLA plastic-based pyramids. From banana flavoured tea to blueberry, their unique tea blends tread lightly on the planet.
Sainsbury’s
Place in your food waste bin
I added Sainsbury’s to this plastic-free teabag list in August 2021. After news that from summer 2021 Sainsbury’s own-brand teabags will be plastic-free, as part of its ongoing commitment to halve plastic packaging by 2025, this finally rolled out in-store in August 2021. The new tea bags are made from PLA and are industrially compostable. What I also like is that the packaging is completely plastic-free too. The box isn’t wrapped in plastic, and nor is there a plastic foil bag inside the box. Accessible plastic-free tea for the win!
Suki Tea
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Based in Belfast, Suki Tea ethically source and blend loose leaf teas, herbal infusions and fruit blends from all over the world. They are best known for their tasty loose leaf tea, however, they do have a selection of PLA-based pyramid teabags.
T2
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Australian brand T2 reached the UK in 2014 and has quite a few High St stores dotted around the UK. Again, 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
Place in your food waste bin
Sustainable tea stalwarts Teapigs have always made teabags without the fossil fuel-based plastic – their tasty tea pyramids have always been PLA-based. However, Teapigs didn’t stop there. A few years ago they also switched the plastic inner bag to a home compostable bag. Top plastic-free marks!
Teatulia
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Teatulia, an organic tea brand from Bangladesh, is a new brand to me, but I like what I see.
All their tea is grown at the Teatulia garden in the north of Bangladesh. Here more than 3,500 mainly female employees grow tea and herbs according to low-intensity natural and organic farming methods. Staff are also paid good wages and provided with healthcare and education.
Teatulia does have a wide selection of loose leaf teas, and their tea bags are made of PLA.
Twist Teas
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
Twist Tea’s range of fruit, herbal and black teas are available in loose-leaf and PLA pyramid teabag formats.
Yorkshire Tea
Place in your food waste bin | Loose leaf tea selection
I’ve included Yorkshire Tea on this plastic-free list as they are currently rolling out their line of PLA teabags. They updated in April 2021 that:
“About half of our UK Yorkshire teabags are now plant-based. That’s all the boxes in sizes 40, 160, and 240, and it applies to normal Yorkshire Tea as well as Yorkshire Gold, Yorkshire Tea Decaf, and Yorkshire Tea for Hard Water. Boxes of 210 are close behind and by the summer (2021) our boxes of 80 tea bags should all be plant-based too.“
Which Teabags Do Contain Plastic?
As of August 2021, many teabags from big-name brands still contain plastic. These include the following brands.
Aldi
Aldi’s Specially Selected Infusion tea bags are made from PLA. However, the remainder of Aldi’s teabags are heat-sealed using polypropylene plastic. In 2018 Aldi said they were looking into plastic-free alternatives across the rest of its own-brand tea range. Finally, in June 2021, Aldi confirmed they are removing single-use plastic from their own-brand range of teabags. This is scheduled to happen by the end of 2021. I’ll update this post when this change comes into effect.
Lidl
Lidl’s pyramid teabags are made from PLA, making them industrially compostable. However, like Aldi, the rest of their range of teabags are sealed using polypropylene. I can’t find any details to say that they looking to switch to more sustainable options, which is disappointing.
Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer’s non-herbal range of tea bags still contains plastic.
In January 2021 Marks & Spencer told me over Twitter that “we changed our pyramid herbal teabags to a plant-based material at the end of 2019. These can be disposed of in food waste bins collected by local councils. We’re continuing to explore more sustainable options for our other tea bag ranges in the future”.
This non-committal action on plastic in the rest of their range of teabags is in contrast to an M&S press release issued in 2018. Here, Marks & Spencer said they were taking a “razor-sharp look at how we use plastics” and that “we’re taking plastics out of all 450 million teabags we sell“. It’s disappointing that three years later that ‘razor-sharp look‘ translates to a woolly ‘we’re continuing to explore… in the future‘.
As such, until their black tea is plastic-free I don’t class M&S as a plastic-free purveyor of tea.
Tetley
Currently, Tetley teabags contain plastic. However, their goal is to produce tea bags made from PLA. Trials have been run, where 3 million PLA teabags were produced and sold, to see if bag splitting would be an issue. The results were positive, so Tetley is now looking to roll out their plastic-free bags. However, no date has been given for this yet. I’ll update this blog post as and when their range launches.
Twinings
I’ve put Twinings in the plastic category, rather than the plastic-free category because I consider them a work in progress.
I 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; find out more here“. Once they’ve switched I’ll update this article. I’ve heard nothing more as of August 2021.
To Conclude The Plastic-Free Teabag Conversation
Many teabag manufacturers have made the switch to more planet-friendly teabags. However, it’s clear that some of the big players, like M&S and Lidl still have some way to go before all of the big tea bag brands are plastic-free.
If your tea manufacturer of choice isn’t mentioned here, then do email or tweet them to ask about their teabags.
Whilst PLA is not an environmental panacea if disposed of correctly, it is better for the planet than fossil fuel-based plastic methods of sealing teabags. Therefore, it’s vitally important they are disposed of properly. If you don’t have access to council food waste collections, then your best course of action would be to tear open the bag to allow you to compost the tea leaves. You would then put the teabag in with your general waste.
Phew, that was a long one! Time to put the kettle on for a plastic-free cuppa I think! If you’ve enjoyed this, then do also check out my guide to the best oat milk. I’ve looked into all sorts of ethics behind the most popular oat milk brands in the UK and uncovered all sorts of murky things.
Source: https://moralfibres.co.uk/the-teabags-without-plastic/
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