12/30/2023 0 Comments London fog tea latte aldi![]() ![]() ![]() Tea/Coffee with Milk, boiling 2x water you needįigures vary by tea type (green vs black etc), which is one of the big topics we are researching as we work to become carbon positive. Tea/Coffee with Milk, boiling the water you need However, milk and sugar are more commonly paired with coffee, which ups the CO2 cost of a cup dramatically! For example, a large milky latte can be worth 340g CO2 - 16x more!Ĭarbon footprints in grams for tea, coffee, milk, and sugar: Food/Beverage What is the carbon footprint of coffee and tea?īlack tea and black coffee stand about even here, with each having approximately 21g CO2 of carbon emissions per cup. Here, there’s a clear winner: tea! A study done in the Netherlands in 2003 found that coffee requires about 140 liters (37 gallons) of water to produce one cuppa joe, while tea (black tea, in this study) only requires 34 liters (9 gallons) of water for one cuppa tea. How much water does it take to produce coffee and tea? Is coffee more sustainable than tea, or vice versa? We’ve established that loose leaf is the way to go when drinking tea, but now let’s compare your favorite caffeinated beverages. Suggestion: Not sure how to drink loose leaf? Try our tea ball infusers or one of our iced tea pitchers complete with a built in tea infuser for a plastic free, re-useable, brewing experience. So, the answer to, is loose leaf tea more environmentally friendly than tea bags? Yes yes yes!! This additional packaging and processing also adds to the carbon footprint of tea bags - which is 10 times higher than loose leaf tea !! (See chart below) When trying to embrace a greener, less wasteful, less carbon heavy life, loose leaf is definitely the way to go. While loose leaf tea comes in a single canister or bag, tea in tea bags are first individually packaged in the tea bag, and then are often wrapped in a second wrapper for freshness, then usually in a cardboard box, then often in a cellophane wrapper. One last big tea-bag negative: they require more material point blank. ![]() While your single tea bag may feel insignificant compared to this large sum, think of all the tea bags in use around the world every single day - tea is the most popular beverage after all…ĭo tea bags or loose leaf tea have a larger carbon footprint? The ocean is now host to well over 5.25 trillion macro and micro pieces of plastic, weighing a total of 269,000 tons. But what about larger ecosystems? Pouring your tea down the drain with all of its microplastic pieces is harmful to oceans and aquatic environments. You know now how teabags can affect your own health, and your compost bin. What does this mean? Don’t compost your tea bags, and choose loose leaf tea instead! This means your tea bag, with all that hidden plastic content, will not go anywhere once tossed in your compost bin.Ī tea bag composted for 6 months to a year looks remarkably similar to the one you just used in your tea (give or take some dirt). Plastic is a polymer that humans have introduced to the environment with a structure that does not break down over time. This is still true therefore in a host of teabags labelled as biodegradable, because there is no regulation on this. ‘Silken’ tea bags are always made from plastic, not silk, and while the string-and-tag tea bag may be secured with a staple or not, they often have plastic fibers added to the paper for strength, not to mention glues. Pressed paper tea bags with crimped edges are sealed using a plastic melt, meaning that the bag ends up containing 20-30% plastic. Many large tea companies use plastic in the making of their tea bags to fortify them, even if it’s a “paper” tea bag. What does that mean for your health? Well, the plastic particles are impossible to see with the human eye, and so small that some could potentially infiltrate human cells. In 2019, a group at McGill University in Montreal conducted a study on plastics in tea bags and came to a shocking result: a single tea bag can release more than 3 billion nanoplastic particles and 11 billion microplastic particles into your cup during a steep. While your teabag may look natural or biodegradable, don’t take that for granted. ![]() Yes, plastic even though it's so flexible. Loose Leaf vs Tea Bags: Plastic Pollution & Carbon FootprintĮver wonder what your tea bag is made of? Ok, brace yourselves for the dark astic. ![]()
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