Wormeries, composting and tea bags

[Nick Palmer]

Hi everybody, I'm a new member. I notice in the latest "Urban Sustainable Living" ezine that you recommend composting tea bags.

excerpt from http://www.urbansustainableliving.com/Composting_1-2-3.html

What to compost: Grass clippings, shredded leaves, pine needles, Wood ashes, Sawdust, Houseplant trimmings, hair, Shredded cardboard, shredded newspaper, Wooden toothpicks, Paper towels paper napkins, tissues, coffee grounds, Tea bags & grounds, cotton swabs, & Greeting card envelopes.

Do not directly compost tea bags! I seem to be fighting a one-man campaign about the following aspect because it does not seem to be known about amongst composters.

Most common tea bags contain a percentage of plastic fibres that the packagers put in so the bag can be heat-sealed during manufacture. These can be polyester, pvc or polypropylene. The bottom line is that if you just throw your tea bags into your wormery, you will find a couple of years later, when you harvest your first worm compost, that it contains impenetrable nets of plastic tea bag "ghosts" that the worms couldn't eat.

It's not easy to see this effect in a normal large bin, because the turning process scrunches up the "ghosts", but it is obvious in a wormery.

Here is a link to a post I did about this on my sustainability blog (http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com/2009/05/worms-tea-bags-and-tissues.html)

Nowadays, I let the bags cool a little, rip 'em and then pour out the leaves into my compost caddy. I'm strongly considering "going back" to using loose leaf tea and a metal infuser which should reduce my waste a little...

Nick Palmer

[gardengirl72]

Thanks Nick. I should have been clearer to say used tea leaves. Do you know if there are specific brands of tea the use biodegradable bags?

[Nick Palmer]

Thanks Nick. I should have been clearer to say used tea leaves. Do you know if there are specific brands of tea the use biodegradable bags?


Hi Patti,

I'm still working on this. There seems to be a lot of confusion amongst manufacturers as to exactly what is in their teabag paper. In the UK, if something is at least 95% made of compostable stuff it can legally be called compostable. Teabag paper seems to have about 3% plastic fibres in it, so I have had replies from companies stating that their tea bags are compostable when they plainly aren't FULLY compostable. I don't think they are being deceptive, they are just not fully aware. I was told of one "sustainable/ethical" manufacturer who was "sure" there was no plastic in their bags but they went and checked and found out that there was - they emailed me about this - but were told by their suppliers that it was biodegradable which may or may not be true - I'm still working on that one.

The tea producers confusion may be explained because teabag manufacturers may actually get their packing machinery at a discount (or free) from the teabag paper manufacturers if they lock themselves into using a particular brand of paper (like TetraPak/Elopak do with their cartons).

This subject is turning out to be far larger than I thought. I'll get back to you here when I have firmer information?

Another aspect, pointed out by a commenter on my blog, is that the plastic may have additives, like pthalates or BPA in it - If those additives leach out of ordinary water bottles, then they damn sure will leach out into boiling water!

Nick