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So that's what I remember hearing this years ago: those silky looking teabags diffuse microplastics. Easy to avoid those.



Er, no. Those silky ones were likely worse, but a lot of the regular looking paper ones have polymer glues releasing microplastic as well.


Do you have any brands in mind? In the bagged tea with cellulose tea bags that I've bought, they are typically held together by just a staple. I've found this to be the case since I occasionally empty the tea from the teabags into my percolator.


Pillow style tea bags are fully enclosed paper tea bags with no string or tags, and have a crimp around the rim. I never thought about them using glue, but it makes sense. Some brands I know of that use them are Taylors of Harrogate, Celestial Seasonings, Republic of Tea.

Edit: Also some tea bags for loose leaf tea like t-sac or finum brands have that crimp on the edge. However, t-sac confirms they use glue, but finum specifically claims to not use glues, so maybe it is jumping to conclusions that all bags of these sort do.


PG Tips is a brand that sells those pyramid-shaped teabags that I believe are held together with the glue.


In 2018, Unilever announced that they would soon stop using plastics in their teabags. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/28/pg-tips-...

They've since reformulated the bags - can't find any statement about the new flat bags.




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