Still drinking here! Coffee, milk…tea… Isn’t it amazing how much beverage packaging we consume when water from the tap wastes zero packaging? Hummmm….

Anyway, on to tea. My mother is an avid tea drinker and really brews with science in mind. The water must be at the right temperature and she sets a timer to know the exact moment to pull those leaves out of the liquid to make the perfect pot of tea. I am a casual tea drinker. I like mine sweetened with honey…and occasionally like milk or lemon in a cup of Earl Grey. But to the casual tea drinker, many might suggest individually sealed tea bags keep a fresh tea taste longer. But to the eco-friendly tea drinker this might not be the solution!

A box of individual tea bags wastes:

• 1 plastic shrink wrapper
• 1 cardboard box
• 1 waxed paper pouch or 20 paper pouches
• 20 tea baggies string, staple and paper tab included (which can be composted, although if bleached, I don’t know if you’d want these in your compost)
• and 20 teaspoons of tea leaves and herbs

What if you were to purchase a tin of loose tea? What then would you waste?

• 1 tin (which can be reused)
• 1 plastic shrink wrap (I haven’t ordered tea in a bit, so this was new to me…the company didn’t use to do this)
• 1 corrugated cardboard box

(Notice here I am ignoring the fossil fuel costs of mail ordering this tin of loose tea. If you are lucky enough to have a tea shop near you, shipping wouldn’t be an issue. And that extra paper thing you see in the box is the company’s catalog. So, maybe you’d have to toss that too, or make a paper-mâché bunny for Easter if you like to re-purpose.)

A wasted packaging tie you delight! Well, maybe not really. A 125g tin of black tea with mango makes 49 cups of tea per the package directions. So, that would actually be 2 1/2 boxes of individual tea bags…or to taste that much tea you’d have to toss,

• 2.5 plastic shrink wrappers
• 2.5 cardboard boxes
• 2.5 waxed paper pouches or 50 paper pouches
• 50 tea baggies
• and 125 grams of tea leaves and herbs

That is a whole lot of wasted packaging. Buy loose tea leaves. You need only buy a tea strainer, or one of those aluminum eggs with the holes in it, to brew your own cup of tea and feel better about wasting less paper and plastic packaging.

Has it really been 10 days of packaging discussion already? Milk, coffee, applesauce, magazines, meats, paper towels, juice, popsicles and chai tea lattes…yep, 10 days. 10 more days of packaging discussions to go.

Although it seems many of these purchases are kitchen related, I can think of so many more items we consume and packaging that we waste. The very cute, big-girl-bed and dresser, given to my daughter, came packaged in styrofoam bags, plastic wrappers, cardboard space-fillers, and (4) gigantic cardboard boxes from Thailand. The plastic toys the kids get during the holidays that have those plastic and wire twist ties, tape, cardboard, and plastic-windowed boxes are pretty wasteful too. Or a computer packed in boat-loads of styrofoam, cardboard and plastic packaging…ack!! Now we are getting into the realm of plastic packed inside of plastic. Why IS that? Why is EVERYTHING packaging in plastic? And we wonder why we are so dependent on oil. Okay, that was a little too soap-boxy. *sigh*

My family has come to rely on certain conveniences and plastic products are among those. We are simply trying to open our eyes and become interested, enfranchised, and mindful of our responsibility to preserve the earth. Modern inventions and advances in technology aren’t always bad in my book. I prefer indoor plumbing, central air, and vehicle mobility. But I know I must choose carefully and consume responsibly so my children and their children will have an earth to inherit.