If you’re an avid tea drinker, you might want to read this: certain kinds of industrially manufactured tea bags contain nano and microplastics. And YOU drink those microplastics with your tea. And immediately, your “healthy tea” turns into a harmful beverage. Of course dangerous for you, but also harmful for the environment as some particles leave you while peeing and end up in nature.
Per cup of tea, you are consuming billions of microplastic and nano plastic particles, non-visible to the human eye
Do you know those fancy-looking, pyramid-shaped teabags? Most of them are made of plastic. Literally toxic plastic. And using them to flavour your hot water with leaves or fruit may leach billions of microplastic and nano plastic particles into your beverage.
According to a series of tests by Laura M. Hernandez, Nathalie Tufenkji and their fellow researchers at McGill University, “a single bag would release more than 11 billion microplastic and 3 billion nano plastic particles.” However, each plastic particles are so small; you can’t spot them with even the healthiest eyes, you need some electron microscope for it.
“Further testing of additional samples revealed their structures and confirmed that the material was made of the same plastic materials like PET, a kind of polyester, and nylon. It was clear, Tufenkji said, that the plastic was coming from the tea bags themselves, not the tea.” And, more concerning “Some of the particles, she noted, would be small enough to infiltrate human cells potentially.”
(source)
How to avoid consuming micro and nano plastics by drinking tea
It sounds quite simple, to avoid consuming billions of polyester and nylon particles with your hot tea, you simply have to avoid those fancy net-tea bags. If a Restaurant or Café serves you your beverage with one of those toxic plastic emitting tea bags, refuse to accept it and inform the employees about the possible health risks.
The best solution, of course, would be brewing fresh herbs, such as peppermint or enhancing the taste with ginger, lemon et cetera.
