• Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    God I hate those. Paper tea bags you can toss into the fireplace or in the compost depending on the time of year, but those plastic ones you can’t do anything but chuck them into the trash.

    • Zitronensaft@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      Paper tea bags usually contain polypropylene or another plastic so they can be heat sealed shut. They aren’t fully compostable.

      • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
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        9 months ago

        Certainly in the UK, there has been a real push for fully compostible teabags. Clipper Tea and PG are fully compostable. Yorkshire Tea was not, last time I looked - which is why I stopped drinking it.

      • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        9 months ago

        Buy loose tea and tea bags.
        Test tea bags by burning them. No residue? They should be free of plastics.

        • accideath@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Or: a reusable metal tea strainer. You just need to take 2 minutes every time to clean it but they’re no excess waste whatsoever

          • Big P@feddit.uk
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            9 months ago

            I tried this but I always end up with tea leaves floating around my cup

            • accideath@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              Then you either need a strainer with a finer mesh or smaller holes, or courser ground tea. I‘d recommend the former. My strainer has very small holes and at worst there’s a bit of tea power at the bottom of my cup

      • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Though I bought relatively large paper-based filters before that explicitly said they were fully compostable. And since loose tea beats bagged tea 90% of the time anyways…

    • Barttier@feddit.de
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, except those are actually from polylactid and decompose completely without microplastic. Paper tea bags on the other hand are often mixed with polypropylene and ironically contain microplastic and don’t decompose completely. The best way is a tea strainer anyway

      • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Are you sure those aren’t nylon bags? Anyway I’ve found PLA’s biodegradability highly over rated. When Sunchips were doing those PLA bags I threw one into a worm bin, when I emptied the bin a year later it looked pretty much unchanged.

        • Barttier@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Tbf: I’m from germany and can only speak for our local market.

          Yes PLAs decompose slow and waaay slower than advertising suggests and need certain conditions, but they are still the better choice over polypropylene.

        • Barttier@feddit.de
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          9 months ago

          Tbf: I’m from germany and can only speak for our local market.

          Yes PLAs decompose slow and waaay slower than advertising suggests and need certain conditions, but they are still the better choice over polypropylene.

    • 0x0@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      But it’s cheaper and more convenient! Why’d you care about the future, you a commie? /s