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Medicine Science

Plastic Tea Bags Shed Millions of Microplastic Particles Into the Cup, Study Finds 140

Posted by BeauHD from the hot-findings dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Scientist: Tea drinkers have been urged to avoid plastic tea bags after tests found that a single bag sheds billions of particles of microplastic into each cup. A Canadian team found that steeping a plastic tea bag at a brewing temperature of 95C releases around 11.6 billion microplastics -- tiny pieces of plastic between 100 nanometers and 5 millimeters in size – into a single cup. That is several orders of magnitude higher than other foods and drinks.

"We think that it is a lot when compared to other foods that contain microplastics," says Nathalie Tufenkji at McGill University. "Table salt, which has a relatively high microplastic content, has been reported to contain approximately 0.005 micrograms plastic per gram salt. A cup of tea contains thousands of times greater mass of plastic, at 16 micrograms per cup." Tufenkji's team bought four different tea bags from shops and cafes in Montreal, cut them open and washed them, steeped them in 95C water and analyzed the water with electron microscopes and spectroscopy. A control of uncut tea bags was used to check it wasn't the cutting that was causing the leaching of microplastics. The study has been published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
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Plastic Tea Bags Shed Millions of Microplastic Particles Into the Cup, Study Finds More

Plastic Tea Bags Shed Millions of Microplastic Particles Into the Cup, Study Finds

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  • Maybe they will start making paper for tea bags again - which is also used to cover model airplane wings. Good "silkspan" has become very hard to find because they switched to plastic to tea.

    • I want to start by saying, in no fucking way am I an elitist. I really dont drink tea very often. But when I do, I buy loose tea and use either a screen, a submerged screen/cage, or a bodum for tea. I just dont get the whole bag thing. I am worried its not 100% whats on the label. At least loose tea you can see it all looks the same.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        I am worried its not 100% whats on the label. At least loose tea you can see it all looks the same.

        Yeah, cause you can totally identify every little thing in your loose-leaf tea. That like a heroin user claiming they can see if their stash is contaminated with fentanyl with the naked eye.

      • I want to start by saying, in no fucking way am I an elitist. I really dont drink tea very often. But when I do, I buy loose tea and use either a screen, a submerged screen/cage, or a bodum for tea.

        You are not an elitist. You steep your tea using the same method as a Chinese peasant.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by StikyPad ( 445176 )

          Apples and oranges. What is pedestrian in one culture or locale can be elitist in another. McDonalds is elitist where I live because most people can't afford it, but freshly squeezed juices are street fare that costs pennies. Loose tea is both more expensive and less common in the US, and most Chinese peasants couldn't afford US prices for anything.

          • McDonalds is elitist where I live because most people can't afford it,

            It's funny, this reminds me of people who say they can't eat healthy, because it's too expensive and McDonald's is cheaper. "How am I supposed to eat healthy when McDonald's is the cheapest food and all I can buy?!"

            • I tell people like that to buy frozen vegetables, you can get a number of servings for 99 cents. Bread and eggs can be purchased for 50 to 60 cents for a dozen eggs, and bread for under a dollar a loaf. Buy meat in bulk, and break it up and freeze it. That is such a lie that you can not afford to eat healthy

              • eggs can be purchased for 50 to 60 cents for a dozen eggs

                You're off by a factor of 10 for my area. It's $5 and up for decent eggs. $3 for the cheapo dozen. I use them infrequently and they keep for months in the fridge, so I get the hormone free, free range, happy hippy chicken packs for $5 or $6.

      • I want to start by saying, in no fucking way am I an elitist. I really dont drink tea very often. But when I do, I buy loose tea and use either a screen, a submerged screen/cage, or a bodum for tea. I just dont get the whole bag thing. I am worried its not 100% whats on the label. At least loose tea you can see it all looks the same.

        No wonder you don't drink it often pissing about with all that faff. Just get some PG tips and be done with it.

      • I'm not an elitist either. I have my butler make my tea and insist on the same method.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by I4ko ( 695382 )

      Hell no. Every time I have a tea in a paper bag all I taste in the brewed water is paper. Soggy, unpleasant cellulose. I would rather have lose leaf tea that let precipitate to the bottom of the cup or just use a metal tea strainer.

  • Why is this bad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday September 25, 2019 @10:43PM (#59237852)

    Plastic is inert, the whole thing about trying to make me worry about micro plastics needs to be accompanied by a very serious set of studies about if that would even be a problem for human physiology.

    So far most tea drinkers I know seem perfectly healthy, in fact healthier than others. Why a few billion micro-plastics really be worse than what you'd get from a single can of Coke?

    Like Carlin said, maybe the Earth's whole point in having humans is to create plastics, so the Earth could consider this a huge victory.

    • Re:Why is this bad (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Strider- ( 39683 ) on Wednesday September 25, 2019 @11:18PM (#59237914)

      Despite the article, the issue isn’t so much you or me, we’re fine. It’s what happens downstream that is the problem. Current water treatment systems (both sewage and potable water) are bad at removing micro plastics from the water.

      Once these get out into the environment, they wind up being consumed by plankton, and the other micro invertebrates that form the foundation off the good web. This is where being inert becomes the problem; it doesn’t provide nutrition to these organisms, but fills their gut. From there, either they die off, thus starving the bait fish that eat them, or they do get eaten and the inert plastic bioaccumulates.

      That’s the real issue here. This is kicking out the foundation off the aquatic ecosystem.

      • Fake News (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

        Once these get out into the environment, they wind up being consumed by plankton

        Anyone that claims to know if microplastics are harmful to organisms like plankton is making things up, because we do not know for sure [eurekalert.org]. There just have not been enough proper studies, both in the lab and the field, to say with any certainty what they do.

        The whole point of creatures like plankton is that they exist in almost incomprehensibly vast numbers, so even if a few billion of them were affected by microplastics it would

        • Re:Fake News (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Sander1685 ( 6195654 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @01:01AM (#59238078)
          I'm a bit skeptical about this "We don't know for sure yet whether it's bad, so carry on" approach. I'd rather take the "We're causing something which wasn't there before, so maybe be cautious about it" approach. So far, there have been many examples of making global changes which did turn out bad, ranging from dumping waste into rivers ("Hey it'll just flow to the sea, who cares") to releasing stuff into the atmosphere ("What's an ozone layer in the first place?"). The idea that "microscopically small particles can cause harm" is also not new. I'm not saying we should immediately panic, but it would be nice that ten years from now when some disaster lurks, we won't have to start all the way from "where TF does this stuff come from?!"

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by guruevi ( 827432 )

            We're causing something new has been the progress of evolution for billions of years. Without change, no evolution happen. This doesn't mean micro-plastics aren't bad, but as said, so far, they've not been proven harmful and it seems some bacteria are able to turn micro-plastics back into oil a lot better than big pieces of plastic.

            Plastic is just processed oil after all, it's carbon-based, it seems plausible that they would be inert to carbon-based lifeforms. Additionally micro-plastics pass through the gu

            • I think your premise is a bit off-kilter.

              Plastic is just processed oil after all, it's carbon-based, it seems plausible that they would be inert to carbon-based lifeforms.

              Studies are showing just the opposite. Organic (aka carbon-based) chemicals integrate into organisms more readily, and are more likely to act like existing chemicals, than inorganic chemicals. That includes plastics.

              Organic flame retardants, for example, frequently mimic endocrine messengers [nih.gov] (think estrogens and the like) in mammals, among other things.

              There is some evidence that plastics mimic biological chemicals as well. Besides adding indigestible fillers to

            • We're causing something new has been the progress of evolution for billions of years. Without change, no evolution happen.

              Sure, but this is already clearly a period of widespread extinction of species, they are being destroyed faster than they're being created. At least, the complex ones. That has ramifications for us.

              it seems some bacteria are able to turn micro-plastics back into oil a lot better than big pieces of plastic.

              Well, of course they can. The ratio of surface area to mass is more favorable.

              Plastic is just processed oil after all, it's carbon-based, it seems plausible that they would be inert to carbon-based lifeforms.

              Nope. It seems more plausible that other carbon-based stuff would interact, not that it would be inert. You have that literally backwards. You can eat sand and pass it out the other end without harm, if you don't eat too much at once. H

            • We're causing something new has been the progress of evolution for billions of years.

              Evolution doesn't imply "progress", it just implies change. Sometimes the change is that a species becomes adapted to a new condition. Sometimes the change is that the species goes extinct and a different species takes over that vacated niche. Evolution doesn't care, either way works.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

          I wanted to say you're an idiot for suggesting that only a few billion plankton are affected but you got a point with natural selection.

          With an average lifespan of a few days, evolution should occur in a useful time frame too.

        • Creatures eat plankton, other creatures eat them, and the plastics re-concentrate as you go up the food chain, eventually poisoning us yet again. All the while, plastic is degrading, leaching plasticisers, attracting and releasing other pollutants, and disrupting cellular processes in its host.

          Natural selection selects for fitness in populations. It won't save the environment by itself.

        • It had to be you to make an up modded asinine comment like this. Are microplastics a naturally occurring substance? No. Do you think its wise to introduce this substance in large quantities to ecosystems we still don't fully understand? No. This is about companies saving a fraction of a penny because plastic is cheaper than the renewable paper.

          • It doesn't matter if they're naturally occurring or not. The "naturalness" of a substance does not necessarily correlate to whether it's good or bad for the environment. There are naturally occurring materials that are poisonous to most forms of life and there are unnatural substances upon which live can thrive.

            As for whether it's wise to introduce microplastics without fully understanding them, I do think we should do more research on the subject, but if microplastics do harm the environment, I doubt th

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I suppose we could wait and see, but given what we know of the problems created by plastic pollution and the landfill issues many countries are facing I say we try to do something about it now.

          After all wait and see didn't work out so well with climate change, did it? And it turns out that even when you do have vast amounts of peer reviewed evidence people just argue over it instead of doing something anyway.

      • Once these get out into the environment, they wind up being consumed by plankton, and the other micro invertebrates that form the foundation off the good web.

        That explains a lot. I was wondering what happened to the good web...

    • I'm not an expert, but what I have heard is that the tiny size of the micro plastics are such that they can interfere with cellular functions.

    • Re:Why is this bad (Score:5, Informative)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @12:12AM (#59238014)

      Plastic is inert

      You think plastics are inert?

      Asbestos is super-inert. So much so, it's fireproof!

    • So far most tea drinkers I know seem perfectly healthy, in fact healthier than others.

      Stray anecdotal evidence in argument.

    • Nitrogen is innert. I highly recommend breathing pure nitrogen instead of that oxidising agent that you currently inhale.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Its not the excess of oxygen that will cause problems, it is the lack of oxygen.

          FYI, too much oxygen can also cause problems! Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org] "Severe cases can result in cell damage and death, with effects most often seen in the central nervous system, lungs, and eyes."

        • I'm so conflicted. Do I call you an idiot for not knowing that breathing excess oxygen can kill you, or do I call you an idiot for not knowing what the word troll means. I think I'll just settle with the obvious and call you a idiot squared.

    • Re:Why is this bad (Score:5, Funny)

      by Saunalainen ( 627977 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @03:32AM (#59238336)

      Plastic is inert.

      So is ground glass. Would you be happy sprinkling it on your cornflakes?

    • Plastic is inert, the whole thing about trying to make me worry about micro plastics needs to be accompanied by a very serious set of studies about if that would even be a problem for human physiology.

      No, "pure plastics" are inert. Not so, plastic products in day-to-day life.

      "Pure plastics have low toxicity due to their insolubility in water and because they are biochemically inert, due to a large molecular weight. Plastic products contain a variety of additives, some of which can be toxic.[31] For example, plasticizers like adipates and phthalates are often added to brittle plastics like polyvinyl chloride to make them pliable enough for use in food packaging, toys, and many other items."

      -- https://en.w [wikipedia.org]

    • So far most tea drinkers I know seem perfectly healthy, in fact healthier than others.

      That's the dumbest fucking 'claim' I've heard in a long time.

      So far most truck owners I know seem perfectly healthy, in fact healthier than others.

      So far most people with riding lawnmowers I know seem perfectly healthy, in fact healthier than others.

      So far most podcast listeners I know seem perfectly healthy, in fact healthier than others.

      C'mon, you can do better. At least I think you can.

    • Plastic is not inert, but your brain is.

      All plastics offgas. All plastics leach toxics into their liquid contents. Yes, literally all of them.

      If you ever learn any facts, please share them.

    • 1. plastic leaches chemicals. give it a huge surface area and put in hot water and you accelerate this orders of magnitude

      2. large surfaces areas can act as reaction sites for other chemical reactions.

      3. microsphere's can cause all sorts of problems for cells, you might even aspirate them in the drinking process

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thomn8r ( 635504 )

      Plastic is inert, the whole thing about trying to make me worry about micro plastics needs to be accompanied by a very serious set of studies about if that would even be a problem for human physiology

      https://scholar.google.com/sch... [google.com]

  • what about the microplastic content of cold brewed iced tea?

    or the content of coffee bags like tea bags?

    • what about the microplastic content of cold brewed iced tea?

      or the content of coffee bags like tea bags?

      Those are beyond the scope of this study.

      Whataboutism

      What about how many microplastics were snorted up the noses of cocaine users in the 80's?

      What about microplastics in the rainfall in the norther Rocky mountains?

      What about how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • "Whataboutism" is the use of bringing up another, non-contradictory point to distract rather than argue the point.

        The mere use of the words "what about" does not imply "whataboutism". The parent poster's point is not an attempt to distract from the finding of the study, but that the study should have included these other cases within its scope.

        You may disagree with that, but that isn't "whataboutism".

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday September 25, 2019 @11:06PM (#59237884)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      Hey... what is a plastic teabag? That would have been good information to include

      Good question. I only drink Red Rose, Bigelow and Twinings, and they all use paper based material. I'm not even sure where to get the plastic type. Maybe those weird triangle-shaped tea bags?

      • Twinings tea bags (except for the pyramid-shaped ones) contain polypropylene (i.e. plastic) so you've kind of got things back to front

      • I only drink Red Rose, Bigelow and Twinings

        Try Dilmah brand tea if you can find it where you are located. I got turned on to it while in Australia. The tea bags are paper.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          I did a little poking around after my initial comment, and saw that Twinings, which I have some of somewhere, is one of the ones some of which have the plastic mesh bag-strengthening and reinforcement, and some don't.

          I was thinking along the lines of Tea Forte, which, I think, use tea bags made up entirely of plastic mesh:
          https://www.teaforte.com/ [teaforte.com]

          But yeah... it feels like we just can't have nice things, despite the best efforts of our chemical engineers. Can't use plastic bottles because of endocrine disruptors, plus bits of them slough off on the inside and end up being consumed... can't use tea from tea bags anymore... ugh.

          It's easy to get all doom and glooom-y, as those are the headlines that drive clicks. The good news is that, if you remove suicide and drug abuse related deaths, people are living longer than ever. So I don't worry too much about what I consume.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        I drink Yorkshire tea and it is now plastic free in the tea bag.

        https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk... [yorkshiretea.co.uk]

        It is noticeable as the wet tea bags are more likely to tear than before. I notice this when emptying the teapot as I now often split the bag. However as it is part of the disposal step it makes no difference.

        The cardboard boxes are shrink wrapped in plastic, however as long as one disposes of that properly; aka it at least goes into landfill it won't be polluting the environment with microplastics.

      • Maybe those weird triangle-shaped tea bags?

        Yes. You would expect "New Scientist" to get something so simple right. Their illustration is of a paper teabag and you're correct, the weird triangle ones are plastic.

        I was curious what they were made of a few years ago so after I had one I let it dry out and then ignited it with a lighter. Sure enough it burned and stank just like plastic.

        It was the last weird triangle teabag I had. The thing that really pisses me off about them is a normal paper teabag bio-degrades completely and there is no trace o

    • Have you ever seen a commie drink a cup of tea?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fred911 ( 83970 )

      Is the danger posed to human health by these microscopic pieces of plastic greater than that posed by...

      1. Drinking tea boiled and poured through a paper filter designed for use with coffee brewing?
      No, if you're concerned don't use bleached filters.

      2. Drinking tea that may have leeched metal from a corroding metal tea infuser, used to brew the same tea as an alternative to the bag the tea itself came in?
      I guess it would depend upon the type of metal the infuser is made out of. A little iron wouldn't hurt mo

    • Many tea bags contain some plastic. This might help:

      https://www.countryliving.com/... [countryliving.com]

    • Hey... what is a plastic teabag? That would have been good information to include.

      Which brands of tea use these bags? How can I tell if the tea I'm using is of that kind?

      From Canada's CBC news report of this study: "You may be swallowing billions of tiny plastic particles while sipping a cup of freshly brewed gourmet tea, a new study from McGill University in Montreal suggests. Many fancier teas now come in "silken" bags instead of paper." https://www.cbc.ca/news/techno... [www.cbc.ca]

      From Mightyleaf.com: "Each of our proprietary tea bags is hand-stitched with silken material, showcasing the distinctive beauty of the tea leaves as they unfurl and steep a full infusion for an ideal, mult

    • Look I know they don't have tea leaves in the Mountain Dew aisle of the grocery store so that's why you might be unfamiliar with them.

    • "Hey... what is a plastic teabag? That would have been good information to include."

      A plastic teabag is someone who writes long comments defending plastic pollution.

      "Which brands of tea use these bags? How can I tell if the tea Iâ(TM)m using is of that kind?"

      If you can't tell the difference between plastic and paper, may i suggest that you put a paper bag over your head?

      "Is the danger posed to human health by these microscopic pieces of plastic greater than that posed by..."

      It's greater than any of tho

  • Up to 5mm in size? (Score:3)

    by tgibson ( 131396 ) on Wednesday September 25, 2019 @11:36PM (#59237948) Homepage

    You'd readily see that and could feel it in your mouth. Surely that is an outlier and a more reasonable range should have been stated.

    • Re:Up to 5mm in size? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Psychotria ( 953670 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @01:55AM (#59238162)

      I think that what has happened there is that the journalist didn't know what a microplastic was and wandered off to Wikipedia or something to get a definition of microplastic (Wikipedia says "5.0 mm in size or less"). The actual paper in question doesn't mention particles of 5mm

  • Finally, we now know how all those tons of plastics end up in the oceans.

  • Would like to know what a plastic teabag is

  • So, is this a huge public health issue, or is it just... a storm in a tea cup?

  • Does Barry's use plastic? What about Lyons?

  • Tea bags (Score:3)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @03:47AM (#59238366) Homepage

    As a Brit:

    Who the hell uses plastic tea bags?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fintux ( 798480 )
      More people than you might think: many manufacturers use plastic at least to an extent in their bags - if not for other things, then for sealing. For sure I did not know many of the products I thought were plastic-free actually were not. The good thing is that manufacturers seem to be phasing out the plastic.

    • Lipton's 4-sided gimmick bags were plastic, to my memory. Haven't seen plastic tea bags since then on Twinings, Lipton, or more local brands; it's always paper for the bag, metal for the staple, and cotton for the string.

  • "Table salt, which has a relatively high microplastic content"

    Don't use sea salt or the expensive fleur de sel, which is still worse.
    Just use the cheap stuff they get out of the mountains by the tons, that one was deposited millions of years before plastic was invented.

    • I never understood the "sea salt is better" propaganda anyway.

      • Some people claim that the iodizing process produces harmful compounds, i know shit about that so I'm not supporting the claim, only repeating it.

  • I don't feel any concern even if I did use plastic tea bags, which I do not

  • Bad Math. Bad Science? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DarienSJ ( 1800276 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @06:36AM (#59238654)
    "Table salt, which has a relatively high microplastic content, has been reported to contain approximately 0.005 micrograms plastic per gram salt. A cup of tea contains thousands of times greater mass of plastic, at 16 micrograms per cup." Wait, thousands of times greater? Let's check that math real fast... 1 cup = 220 g (yes, there's room for error here) 16 micrograms / 220 g = 0.0727 micrograms per gram. 0.0727 / 0.005 = 14.545 times more microplastic. Yep, nowhere near 1000. Well, maybe it's not a cup as in a measurement, but a "cup" as in a drink.... 6 oz = 170.1 g 16 / 170.1 = 0.0941 micrograms per gram. 0.0941 / 0.005 = 18.812 times more microplastic. Huh. Whelp, I'm done here & ignoring this entire report now.
    • I can't be bothered with checking your math, but thanks for doing it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by goulo ( 715031 )
      A tea bag has about 2 grams of tea. THAT's pretty obviously what they're talking about, not about the several hundred grams of water you poured into your tea cup. (If you want to consider the mass of the resulting cup of tea when you compare with the salt measurement, then you should similarly consider the resulting mass of the food onto which you sprinkle your salt, not just the mass of the salt itself...)

    • Re:Bad Math. Bad Science? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by eepok ( 545733 ) on Thursday September 26, 2019 @02:54PM (#59240352) Homepage

      I saw your math and the AC's math and had to jump in myself. Both mathifications were correct. So I started to think how one could fudge words to show and extreme call to action.

      I think their error is in equating "1 bag of tea" (2 grams of tea leaves) with "1 cup of tea" (8 ounces of steeped water). If you go with "2 grams of tea leaves", then it's 16 micrograms of microplastic per two grams or 1,600 more microplastic density than table salt.

  • Good (Score:2)

    by hipp5 ( 1635263 )

    I don't even understand why they switched to plastic teabags in the first place. I'm no plastic hater: I can appreciate that it's a superior material for many use cases. But tea bags? I have NEVER had a problem with traditional paper or cotton bags, and they can be composted when you're done.

    Tea bags seem like one of the most egregious uses of overusing plastic.

  • So ... do we know that these particles cause harm? 'cause there are all sorts of contaminants in everything, and always have been (if you include "natural" ones).
  • Does anybody know how it refers to omnipresent K-cups?
    I have a coffee machine with them and would be glad to know whether to toss it out and switch to the old fashioned one, as the recent studies showed how devastating for health micro-particles are.

    • You know you can get reusable metal k-cups, right? I'm not sure how they handle the DRM but if you bought a coffeemaker with DRM you deserve everything you got, plus ridicule.

  • Some teabags are nylon mesh and obviously plastic. But even most "paper" teabags are reinforced with plastic [facebook.com]. Simple solution would be for tea drinking nations to define in law what is and isn't allowed in a teabag and all of a sudden the industry will change its ways.

    Not sure coffee drinkers should feel smug though considering how many coffee pods are made of plastic, and coffee makers use nylon filters. Perhaps the law should be generalised and apply all kinds of drink and the permissible waste product

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