In This Climate: More than just a cuppa

A simple cup of tea can get you thinking about the problem we face with waste and its impact on the climate crisis.

In This Climate: More than just a cuppa

It all began with a teabag and layers of packaging. One morning, I decided to make some tea. For me this is unusual as I default to Earth-given H2O organic water any other day. I finally gave in to making some of the herbal tea that had been sitting on my counter for two months because I wanted to start my journey to being an aesthetic self care girlie I had seen on my social media feed.

As you can guess, that mentality did not last long due to the fact I had three boxes of herbal tea sitting on my counter for two months. I opened the box, took out the film that held the tea bags, and opened it. Took out a tea bag and ripped it. Ripped it, you ask? Yes, I ripped the tea bag open. This is because I am very conscious of taste. And in my mind, leaving the tea herbs in the bag and leaving it to brew is equivalent to having a microplastic cocktail stew.

As I was straining the tea leaves the “old-fashioned way” into a singular cup, the cafetiere my dad used for his coffee caught my eye. Deciding it would be quicker to make a large batch of tea instead of individual cups, I began ripping tea bags and transferring the tea leaves to a smaller container for easier use. For 10 minutes, I stood there ripping and emptying, a pile of discarded tea bags growing in size as the minutes ticked by. 

Looking towards the mountain of plastic fibre squares, I pondered on the travesty that are “simple” items like tea being over-packaged and not recyclable. The box of tea I was using had 40 tea bags and four separate components that made up the finished product – the box, the film, the tea bag, and the tea – when it could be just the tea leaves and the container. It certainly was sobering and disheartening to see the dubious tea packaging on my counterside that, if it wasn't recycled, would end up in landfill decomposing for a millennium. 

As an economics and business student I am taught to think critically about: production processes, reducing costs and being aware of all the processes that go into producing a finished product. Unfortunately, this makes me overly conscious and aware how much goes into processing a little blue box containing 40 chamomile tea bags you find on your local store's shelves. The movement towards making more sustainable products and the threat of global warming means that companies, due to their corporate social responsibility, must respond to this change in consumer attitude. For example, Aldi has moved towards using biodegradable materials instead of the single-use plastic tea bags sealed with oil-based plastic they used before 2022.

It raised questions like: “What is the product's mileage before it made its way onto UK store shelves, and then to sitting on your mum’s shelf for who knows how long after she read an article on how tea was more ‘economically friendly’ and better for your health than her morning coffee?” 

The point I'm trying to make is that, when you buy products from your local supermarkets, take a second to consider if all that packaging is really necessary and how you can help out the environment by recycling or reusing parts of the products, giving them a second life. As a society, we produce way more than we ever use or need, so as stewards of this planet it is up to us to change that.

Click to read more from In This Climate

Header Image Credit: Jubair1985/Wikimedia Commons

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