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Commercial tea bags release microplastics, entering human cells
- timthelion 2y agoIs celulose a 'microplastic' though? Obviosly most tea bags are not made of plastic, at least historically...
- LegitShady 2y agocellulose on its own is not a plastic but they make bioplastics out of cellulose that are plastics.
- mandmandam 2y agoThese days many tea bags use polymers in their glue; and I don't think this article implied anywhere that cellulose is microplastic: > The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose
- acidburnNSA 2y agoWhat materials do different brands of tea make their tea bags out of, I wonder?
- vinni2 2y agoI wondered the same and unfortunately the manufacturers don’t publish the material of the tea bags. I am switching to loose tea and even when I only have tea bags i can take the tea out and brew it in reusable metal thing.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoShould be a law to put the materials used on all products, not just foods.
- mhandley 2y agoHere's a pretty complete list of UK brands: https://moralfibres.co.uk/the-teabags-without-plastic/ https://moralfibres.co.uk/the-teabags-without-plastic/
- drunkonvinyl 2y agoNicer teas (pricier usually) come in cotton muslins - https://www.mariagefreres.com/en/tea.html?conditionnement=47 https://www.mariagefreres.com/en/tea.html?conditionnement=47. Their Marco Polo tea is my once a year splurge. The bag is tied with string - no glue.
- Fluorescence 2y agoThe article made me check Yorkshire Tea and I'm not really quite sure. How bad are "plant-based plastics"? > made from natural fibres like wood pulp and the seal is made with PLA - an industrially compostable, plant-based plastic > ... so we're following WRAP's advice and avoiding the phrase "plastic free" https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/our-packaging https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/our-packaging https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/brew-news/plastic-in-tea-bags---progress-report https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/brew-news/plastic-in-tea-bags...
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI believe PLA decomposes, unlike petroleum based plastics. I don't have a link for you though.
- alwa 2y agoI’m surprised to see them characterize the cellulose from a paper teabag as releasing “microplastics.” I get that cellulose is a polymer, but do practitioners not distinguish between naturally-occurring polymers and synthetic plastics in this kind of microplastic/nanoplastic research? When I boil some vegetables, do they leach microplastics into the cooking liquid, or is that something different from what this study is describing? (Edit: on looking to the study itself, it seems like this was more about developing a methodology than asserting anything in particular about the paper teabag, which they described as a random pick stripped from some green teabags from the store. Specifically I didn’t understand it to suggest that synthetic microplastics had gotten bound up in the paper matrix somehow and THAT was what was being released… so maybe it was, after all, just “model intestines absorb cellulose but not super well.” Maybe practitioners would understand the cellulose results to be used like a control here? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653524026377?via=ihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004565352... )
- LegitShady 2y agothere are cellulose bioplastics maybe thats what they were testing?
- alwa 2y agoIt sounded from the methods section like a random paper teabag from the store. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the manufacturing world had moved from paper to some kind of engineered cellulose bioplastic… but I always thought of those more in the context of rayon, and those horrible “bamboo” textiles and foams. (Versus linen made from bamboo fibers, which is lovely :) Are there other processes that work out cheaper than paper for teabag kind of applications these days?
- LegitShady 2y agoI dont really think cellulose paper counts as a microplastic, though. its just cellulose fibers.
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- malfist 2y agoAt this point the question might be, what doesn't release micro plastics. I don't use tea bags, all my tea is loose leaf, but I'm sure it's still got micro plastics somewhere in it
- mrspuratic 2y agoIf you home-compost you get used to finding tea bag skeletons in the compost. For years I used to rip open the used tea bag, compost the tea and discard the bag. In the last few years the largest two brands here (Ireland: Lyons and Barrys) have gone somewhere between "plastic free" and "biodegradable" (but not home-compostable). 95% of tea is sold in the form of tea bags here. https://livinglightlyinireland.com/2021/02/12/plastic-free-tea/ https://livinglightlyinireland.com/2021/02/12/plastic-free-t... (article is from 2021, I think the title is suffering from a Wordpress date placholder)
- selimthegrim 2y agoThanks for this; have been buying Barry’s lately in US
- kjkjadksj 2y agoI throw the whole teabag, rope and all, into the compost and the mealworms make it into incomprehensible brown slush along with the rest of the pile in a few days. It’s always way more productive using insects in the compost.
- seniortaco 2y agoWatch out who you shake hands with, you might absorb micro plastics from them if they use a lot of Tupperware.
- api 2y agoThis is probably the lead of the 21st century, something all over that we have kind of known is bad but haven’t paid attention to. Add endocrine disruptors along with microplastics since the origin is similar. In 50 years there will probably be a lot less plastic used in contact with food, and what is used will be formulated differently. It will be similar to the gradual removal of lead from everything.
- toss1 2y agoYup. Seems like a great idea at the time, until it is both such a great idea that it becomes ubiquitous and we start looking at it more closely. Kind of a proverbial 'boiling the frog' problem. A little bit of handling lead pipes or pumping leaded gasoline or inhaling or ingesting microplastics won't do anything. But when modern life gets so we're all bathing in the stuff all the time, the big problems are revealed.
- jjtheblunt 2y agoMaybe in the "western world", but look up asbestos use and mining and export in brazil, china, russia and you may be horrified.
- gen220 2y agoYeah and similar to lead (and asbestos as someone else mentioned), once you see it you can't really un-see it. The idea of re-heating food by microwave in a plastic storage container, or purchasing anything acidic or liquid from the grocery store that's stored in a plastic or plastic-lined container elicits a similar feeling in my brain to sleeping under popcorn ceilings or drinking water from a house with lead pipe plumbing. Yet, in the U.S. at leaste, people have been doing this literally for decades without thinking twice :/
- ahartmetz 2y agoSo we know that microplastics are everywhere. The thing that doesn't really seem clear yet is whether microplastics are actually harmful. Polyethylene, for example, seems quite harmless. (There are also generally harmless substances that become harmful in the right shape, e.g. quartz as fine dust or fibers)
- nikolayasdf123 2y agoother big overlooked area — paper cups are covered inside with hydrophobic film that is made of plastic, and given extra hot water makes plasticisers get off substance, chances are all those paper cups are releasing lots of microplastics into hot water. ask for mugs folks.
- saas_sam 2y agoJust make sure the mugs weren't washed with Jet Dry... Avoiding toxic and questionable substances really does get exhausting after awhile. It's everywhere. I'm able to draw a reasonable line (for me) without getting too nuts about it. Hoping AI ends up helping with this.
- gosub100 2y agowhat would AI do that human intelligence couldn't? Is it not a linear cause-and-effect relationship? more plastics cause more illness? (yes | no). If plastics are toxic, wouldn't we see for ourselves (thus NOT requiring AI) a proportionate increase in sickness in samples (people or animals) with higher plastic in their bodies? Why is the message more profound if AI tells you versus a human team of college researchers?
- relaxing 2y ago> If plastics are toxic, wouldn't we see for ourselves (thus NOT requiring AI) a proportionate increase in sickness in samples (people or animals) with higher plastic in their bodies? Yeah man I notice microplastics in tissue samples from my sick friends all the time. Haven’t you?
- saas_sam 2y ago"What would seeing information on a computer screen do for you that a book couldn't?" Reducing friction of access to information, friend. That's what. Taking a label in a supermarket and immediately seeing what's good and bad about it. Increasing competitive pressure on companies who still use toxic ingredients. I could go on here but it seems like you just take issue with "AI" as a concept because it is trivial to come up with many ways in which AI would help here.
- oidar 2y agothis is from the same journal with the black plastic cooking utensils that has been remove from a major index. https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/12/journal-that-published-faulty-black-plastic-study-removed-from-science-index/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/12/journal-that-publishe...
- rc_mob 2y agoScience loves proving science wrong. I'm glad science overcame science on the issue of blqck plastic
- NooneAtAll3 2y agofascinating how one piece of bad journalism disqualifies whole research - we already have 2 comments (and I was about to post the 3rd) here about "why cellulose is in the list of microplastics?" in my case I opened the news story with a question "what microplastics even are there in a paper bag??", then saw the sentence "The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose."
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI think it's just worded badly. They were testing three different bags.
- crazygringo 2y agoI find it impossible to put this into any kind of meaningful context. First of all, what's with the focus on tea bags? How does that compare with microplastics entering our food and drink from the plastic-lined paper cups we drink hot tea and coffee out of, from the cling wrap that covers our food as we heat it in the microwave, from the Tupperware and other plastic containers we heat our food up in, from the bottled water that sits inside plastic for months, from all of the plastic bowls and utensils we use in our kitchens, from the disposable serrated plastic knife we might use at an event to cut our chicken, and so forth? Why tea bags? Second, how do "microplastics" compare to micro-everything else? Surely if you brew tea in a wooden container, "microwood" particles are entering the drink. Surely when you scrape your stainless steel spatula against your stainless steel skillet making scrambled eggs, "microsteel" particles are embedded in your eggs. How does the body deal with micro-everything? Is there any reason to think plastic is more harmful? Is there any specific supposed health consequence, like a specific type of cancer or increased aging or something?
- bowmessage 2y agoI don’t do anything in that list you just mentioned, and I will probably stop drinking tea from a bag now. This is helpful research.
- 0-_-0 2y agoWhere do you find plastic tea bags? I don't think I've ever seen one.
- TeaBrain 2y agoMesh tea bags, like are used at Starbucks, are plastic.
- bluejekyll 2y ago“The tea bags used for the research were made from the polymers nylon-6, polypropylene and cellulose.” They aren’t pure plastic.
- leobg 2y agoCuriously, it seems the best way to reduce (though not avoid) micro plastic exposure from tea bags is to switch from cellulose tea bags to plastic ones – nylon: > polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometers; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometers; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometers.
- vinckr 2y agoor use a small metal or ceramic bowl to hold the tea -> zero plastic involved.
- mandmandam 2y agoWell, no, because those measurements are per ml. A nylon bag uses many more mls than a paper bag using plastic glue.
- marcosdumay 2y agoThe nylon strength and stability making for counterintuitive trade-offs yet again. It's a ridiculously underrated material. (Does it fare worse or better if reused? I don't have a clue, but there are reusable nylon bags.) Anyway, particle size probably matters, and I'm not sure it wins on that count. Also anyway, you can get a steel tea holder, so the best way is to completely avoid plastics here. You can also probably get your leaves much cheaper in 200g or 1kg bags.
- leobg 2y agoSure. I use whole leaf, brew it in a glass cup, and pass it through a stainless steel sieve. Bags seem wasteful on so many levels.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoI'll take the micro cellulose particles. I already get cellulose in my food and I know my gut bacteria can digest small quantities.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Beijinger 2y agoI don't know about tea bags, but guys, do yourself, your health and your finances a favor and buy this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DF1ZHXPG https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DF1ZHXPG It works surprisingly well, the coffee tastes better and it is not messy.
- ysleepy 2y agoI just use a French Press.
- bdcravens 2y agoWe did for years, and even have a pretty cool one with dual filtration that prevented almost all grit. (the Espro) However, I didn't enjoy the wasted coffee and cleanup, and found that using refillable pods used less coffee and mess for the same product.
- ysleepy 2y agoThe annoying cleanup and wasted coffee seems specific to the espro. Cleaning a normal one is really quick and I don't mind the remainder of fines as they quickly settle at the bottom of the cup.
- bdcravens 2y agoWe've used refillable pods for years now.
- Beijinger 2y agoYeah. Same shit with water. https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2024/1/10/study-finds-hundreds-of-thousands-of-plastic-particles-in-bottled-water https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/blog/2024/1/10/stu... Currently, I buy Pellegrino at Costco. But probably I just should get a sodastream with a glass bottle and filter my tap water. Shipping water from Italy. Fucking insane. Maybe I should open my own bottling company with glass bottles.
- keepamovin 2y agoI can taste and feel the chemicals in tea bags, so I always wash the bags with cold water, then a first draw of boiling water, then I fill it up. Feels much cleaner. When dealing with our highly processed factory food products that come to you direct from a factory, a first wash with clean water is usually a good bet.
- hfgjbcgjbvg 2y agoRight on. Gotta love 2024.
- righthand 2y agoThere are tons of companies that have tea bags made out of biodegradable materials such as tree bark. Or if you don’t have access, consider a metal steeper and loose tea. Unbelievable the stuff people just shove in their gullet with no inspection.
- mmh0000 2y agoTo be fair, if you live in a developed country, you have organizations like the FDA which "should" be vetting the "food" on store shelves as "safe". Now whether or not they actually do a good job at that task is a different question. It's unfortunate that you'd expect millions of people to individually "do research" (i.e. consult their crystal-stroking astrologist nutjob friend on Facebook). There is no reasonable way for individuals to make informed decisions regarding each individual item they may eat. The Good Place has a great little clip about just the difficulty of buying a tomato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8m_5HDZF7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8m_5HDZF7w
- righthand 2y agoI don’t expect millions of people to do research, I expect people to look at the thing in front of them and think, “wait what is this made of? It looks like plastic, maybe I should be skeptical.” However if the country is going to be based on lobbying efforts you better damn well be able to do a little research. There is a reasonable way to make informed decisions. It starts with skepticism and not just shoving food into your face because it’s popular.
- jajko 2y agoGood luck meeting that expectation with people doing their weekly grocwries. Dreamy looks in the distance while difficult questions are being answered, precise estimations based on looks and tons of furious googling happening among the isles for each of the 113 items bought that day. And then realizing 109 of those are somehow interacting with plastics anyway, and there is nothing better in the shop. People have too much on their plate to grind their lives to halt for 1 out of too many worries just for groceries.
- jakub_g 2y agoTalking tea bags, this is a rabbit hole as a few sibling commenters pointed out already: - most tea bags contain plastic themselves - pretty much every bakery / small coffee place place serves tea in paper cups lined up with plastic, it's very difficult to get a tea in a proper ceramic cup those days - waters heaters often have plastic lids - pretty much every insulated thermos also has at least a plastic cover For the last one, a friend has recently found some plastic-free thermos: https://www.kleankanteen.com/collections/plastic-free https://www.kleankanteen.com/collections/plastic-free Please share if you know others.
- xandrius 2y agoI think for most places in the world, tea is an activity done at home with own cups/glasses. Or at least, say in China/Taiwan, the heated tea gets made cold in steel containers and then served cold in plastic cups (e.g. For milk tea) else all is ceramic. The main point is that even who doesn't go to buy a tea elsewhere get in contact with microplastic. So, now many people might have to switch to loose leaf to avoid getting another source of microplastics in their daily lives.
- jajko 2y agoLoose leaves are more inconvenient compared to tea bags. All else equal dont expect major adoption just for yet another health scare. People in general are lazy.
- xandrius 2y agoNot really interested in what others do with themselves, lifestyle is a personal choice. Although things like these, if found to have an impact, should be out of reach from the general public. I find it interesting how for many (except for things like MSG and fats) previously thought "health scares", especially regarding plastic and the likes, have been found to be detrimental to our health and still people sneer at these initial studies. Given that, I'd personally rather err on the side of caution, especially when the change is so minute to be frivolous. If someone told to stop eating, say, pizza then that would be a whole other story. But not using plastic with hot food/beverages? Not a big deal for me.
- solnyshok 2y agohopefully, they did find some traces of tea in those tea-bags
- 1over137 2y agohttps://archive.is/mAXxS https://archive.is/mAXxS
- Slava_Propanei 2y ago[dead]
- javier_e06 2y agoOne solution is cut the bags with scissors and use the leaves. I remember those metal pods with a chain. Before tea bags became a thing.
- hyperific 2y agoTo all those who are asking "Why teabags?", it's in the introduction section of the study. > Among the different food containers releasing MNPLs, teabags stand out. Recent investigations have elucidated that teabags significantly contribute to the release of millions of MNPLs, adding to their daily ingestion by humans (Banaei et al., 2023).
- darrensharm 2y agoThat's why most tea bags in Germany are made from starch. Land of high tech engineering, I guess.
- leobg 2y agoIt’s just one of those areas where we weren’t quite fast enough to catch up with the U.S. in copying their mistakes. Though I think it is true that the tea bag used to be a German idea.
- morsch 2y agoMost tea bags in Germany aren't made from starch. Am I missing something? https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teebeutel https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teebeutel
- blueflow 2y ago> The paper is published in the journal Chemosphere. From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494733 > The publisher of a high-profile, now-corrected study on black plastics has been removed from a critical index of academic journals after failing to meet quality criteria, according to a report by Retraction Watch. >On December 16, Clarivate—a scholarly publication analytics company—removed the journal Chemosphere from its platform, the Web of Science, which is a key index for academic journals.
- semiquaver 2y agoAlso on the front page: the journal this study was published in was recently removed from a major index of journals for failing to meet quality criteria: https://retractionwatch.com/2024/12/18/journal-that-published-viral-study-on-black-plastic-removed-from-major-index/ https://retractionwatch.com/2024/12/18/journal-that-publishe...
- giantg2 2y agoI switched to tea balls simply because I could taste the bags. I guess this is an added bonus.
- canadiantim 2y agoNot surprising. I’ve always assumed this was the case.
- nycdatasci 2y agoIn this study, they placed 300 tea bags in 1 liter of near-boiling water. For those asking "why tea bags?" they're widely used and easy to research. Putting 300 tea bags into a container is much easier than sequentially microwaving a liter of water in 300 different plastic containers to measure the impact of microwaving food in plastic.
- bruce343434 2y agoWhy don't people just use stainless steel tea eggs??
- 462436347 2y ago[dead]
- AwaAwa 2y agoCellulose is microplastic? I wonder what paper straws shed?
- kccqzy 2y agoCellulose is supposed to be dietary fiber. For which there is a recommended daily intake amount.
- exabrial 2y agoAbsolute garbage study. Leave this on reddit and tiktok.
- raffraffraff 2y agoI must be damn near made out of micro plastics by now. I shouldn't stand close to the fire.
- slowmovintarget 2y agoThis is why we switched back to loose leaf tea + high quality porcelain (Chinese porcelain has too much lead in it) + stainless steel strainers. When you do this, all of sudden the quality of the tea makes a huge difference. You learn what "second flush Assam" means, for example.
- bithead 2y ago>A study by the Mutagenesis Group of the UAB Department of Genetics If I drink this tea will I gain latent mutant powers?
- jaequery 2y agodamn, i've been drinking bagged green tea 3x a day ...
- formvoltron 2y agowhen i try to warn friends about this they think i'm just a complete screwball.
- dirtysanchez 2y ago[dead]
- 29athrowaway 2y agoJust get a tea infuser, open the bag and put it in the infuser.
- apt-apt-apt-apt 2y agoOne day, I happened to watch a Starbucks worker make my iced Americano. Imagine my surprise after a decade of feeling safe from microplastics by ordering iced, when they dripped 93C coffee straight into the venti plastic cup. Ice and water were then added, resulting in the perfect crime– an ice cold drink with no sign that it was made with hot water in disposable plastic. Suffice it to say, my trust in corporations regarding our health is not high anymore. When ordering, I now ask for water before espresso.
- ok654321 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]