You don’t want to know this, but this is what’s actually in your tea bags
Tea lovers, we have bad news. Recent research has found that your tea bag may contain billions of microplastics. Innocently sipping your cup of tea is (also) no longer an option.
We’re almost wondering whether we can escape microplastics at all?! In any case, you can no longer trust your tea bag. When you put tea bags made from synthetic materials such as nylon or polypropylene in hot water, millions of microplastics can be released, which you then ingest. This is especially true of pyramid-shaped tea bags or ‘luxury’ plastic tea bags.
Billions of microplastics
The tea bag study was conducted by researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and published in the journal Chemosphere (PubMed). The researchers tested tea bags made from three common types of material: nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose. Laser techniques were used to detect the microplastics. Polypropylene tea bags took the crown: they released no fewer than 1.2 billion particles per millilitre. Cellulose tea bags released around 135 million particles per millilitre, while nylon-6 tea bags released around 8.18 million particles per millilitre. Shocking, right?
Plastic in your intestines
The researchers went one step further. They also exposed the plastic particles to various types of human intestinal cells. Mucus-producing cells in the intestines in particular absorbed large quantities of microplastics, some particles even penetrating into the cell nucleus.
A caveat is that the researchers only studied cancer cells, because it is difficult to grow non-cancerous cells in a lab. It is therefore difficult to determine to what extent this discovery can be applied to normal, healthy cells.
Shocking
But still—once again—shocking! So microplastics really are everywhere. You might expect them from your plastic cutting board, but from your tea bag? I find that just as alarming as the fact that you ingest microplastics when you eat fish. You think you’re being healthy, but nothing could be further from the truth. So it’s no wonder that these tiny plastic particles have now also been found in our blood. Microplastics can cause organ damage, inflammation and disruptions to your hormonal balance, so you simply don’t want to ingest them.
Spill the tea
As a true tea lover, you naturally don’t want to give up that delicious cup of tea. Do you have to from now on? No. If you don’t like the idea of potentially ingesting microplastics through your tea bag, there are alternatives. Choose loose-leaf tea or make tea with fresh herbs. A little more effort, but much more flavour—and you’ll prevent yourself from unknowingly ingesting microplastics through your daily cup of tea!
And… spill the tea with the people around you. The more people who know about it, the better.
Read also:
- 6 top hacks with your used tea bag
- This tea tastes like a Pornstar Martini cocktail
- Good to know: how often can you actually reuse a tea bag?
Sources: Time Investors, Women’s Health, PubMed
