this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024

471 points (92.1% liked)

Mildly Infuriating

35493 readers

433 users here now

Home to all things "Mildly Infuriating" Not infuriating, not enraging. Mildly Infuriating. All posts should reflect that.

I want my day mildly ruined, not completely ruined. Please remember to refrain from reposting old content. If you post a post from reddit it is good practice to include a link and credit the OP. I'm not about stealing content!

It's just good to get something in this website for casual viewing whilst refreshing original content is added overtime.

Rules:

1. Be Respectful

Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.

Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.

...

2. No Illegal Content

Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.

That means: -No promoting violence/threats against any individuals

-No CSA content or Revenge Porn

-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)

...

3. No Spam

Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.

-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.

-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.

-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers

-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.

...

4. No Porn/Explicit

Content

-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.

-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.

...

5. No Enciting Harassment,

Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts

-Do not Brigade other Communities

-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.

-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.

-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.

...

6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

...

7. Content should match the theme of this community.

-Content should be Mildly infuriating.

-At this time we permit content that is infuriating until an infuriating community is made available.

...

8. Reposting of Reddit content is permitted, try to credit the OC.

-Please consider crediting the OC when reposting content. A name of the user or a link to the original post is sufficient.

...

Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Lemmy Review

2.Lemmy Be Wholesome

3.Lemmy Shitpost

4.No Stupid Questions

5.You Should Know

6.Credible Defense

Reach out to LillianVS for inclusion on the sidebar.

All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

LillianVS@lemmy.world

STRIKINGdebate2@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

471

Plastic tea bags (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by BigTrout75@lemmy.world to c/mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world

148 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I decided to have a green tea because it's healthier than soda. It's healthier, right?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10389239/

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] janonymous@lemmy.world 196 points 8 months ago (4 children)

The first time I saw a bag like that, I was shocked as well. Seems like just the worst idea to use plastic to create tea bags. Turns out it is and they weren't made out of plastic. It's a starch based fiber that is biodegradable. I don't think you could have plastic tea bags here in the EU in any case. I'd wager yours isn't plastic either. Yeah, so you probably got mildly infuriated over nothing, just like I did the first time I saw one of these 🤷

[–] MrsDoyle@lemmy.world 36 points 8 months ago (2 children)

https://youtu.be/limwsUnH4iQ?feature=shared

Regular teabags are sometimes made using non-biodegradable plastic - be sure to buy those made with this starch based plastic. When I first saw biodegradable teabags I was surprised, I thought teabags were made of paper. Not so, it turns out.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/limwsUnH4iQ?feature=shared

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] freebee@sh.itjust.works 24 points 8 months ago (2 children)

there's still a decent chance it's only industrially biodegradable: at higher temperatures and pressures than a good ol' home compost pile normally ever gets near. It could still be a bit infuriating.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 8 months ago

It's dope having municipal compost pickup, guys.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] geelgroenebroccoli@feddit.nl 13 points 8 months ago (8 children)

I can't really find a source for it, but I remember the EU banning plastic in tea bags quite recently, a few years ago at most. Here in the Netherlands, a lot of tea bags contain(ed) plastic as some kind of sealant.

Also, a lot of tea contains sugar, for no good reason whatsoever.

load more comments (8 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 88 points 8 months ago (20 children)

Plastic tea bags are really disappointing. It's not enough that plastic is everywhere thanks to tire dust, I have to drink it, too? Cool.

At home, I use loose leaf and a metal strainer. Makes less waste, and there's no plastic.

[–] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 44 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have to drink it, too?

If it makes you feel any better, there's so much microplastic everywhere that there was going to be plastic in that water regardless of what the tea bag was made of.

[–] LordKitsuna@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (4 children)

And there's not even really anything you can do about it. Reverse osmosis should be able to get rid of microplastics but the fucking containers for the filters are plastic and the lines running between them are plastic so they're just going to reintroduce microplastics even after filtering!

There was a recent study showing that boiling water could actually break down and remove a surprising number of microplastics so I guess for making tea you might be a little better off but still

[–] Fermion@mander.xyz 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

That's a little hyperbolic. There's a lot of mechanics at play in generating microplastics. Fabrics have microscopically thin strands of plastics. It should be no surprise that rubbing up against thousands of tiny strands every time we move and wash synthetic fabric clothes releases many tiny particles. Plus clothes have to deal with UV degradation making the plastic more brittle.

The plastic components in an RO system should be specced to not leach plasticizers. They should have smooth walls and laminar flow. There shouldn't be much to abrade the plastic surfaces and shed particles. They may not be perfect, but water from an RO system will have orders of magnitude fewer microplastics. So an RO system still "does something about it."

We do need to address the problem, but I wouldn't want people to avoid beneficial remediation just because it has some plastic components.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (19 replies)

[–] doublenut@lemm.ee 58 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Are we sure thats not the commonly used silk tea bag? Why do we think this is plastic?

[–] barttier@feddit.de 29 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

They are from polylactid and decompose without a trace and without microplastic. Paper tea bags on the other hand often contain around 20% polypropylene and cause microplastic.

[–] zik@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Despite claims to the contrary, PLA does usually break down into microplastics. It's possible that under certain conditions (such as those found in industrial composters) those microplastics might be broken down into starches and consumed by bacteria, but most teabags will just end up in landfill and won't break down beyond microplastics.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] cerulean_blue@lemmy.ml 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Arghh, two conflicting replies. What do we do?!!

[–] ohlaph@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Eat Taco Bell and see who shits themselves first.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

A gentlemen's duel for the modern age.

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Silk is expensive. Almost all pyramidal tea bags are nylon and/or polyester (at least in the US). Only premium stuff is going to be made of silk and they'll advertise it as such

[–] Sludgehammer@lemmy.world 43 points 8 months ago (6 children)

God I hate those. Paper tea bags you can toss into the fireplace or in the compost depending on the time of year, but those plastic ones you can't do anything but chuck them into the trash.

[–] Zitronensaft@feddit.de 34 points 8 months ago (11 children)

Paper tea bags usually contain polypropylene or another plastic so they can be heat sealed shut. They aren’t fully compostable.

[–] HeartyBeast@kbin.social 36 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Certainly in the UK, there has been a real push for fully compostible teabags. Clipper Tea and PG are fully compostable. Yorkshire Tea was not, last time I looked - which is why I stopped drinking it.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (10 replies)

load more comments (5 replies)

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 32 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Is that even tea? It looks like broccoli and carrots.

[–] EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works 22 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Soup is just vegetable and bone tea

[–] ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 8 months ago

bone apple tea

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml 27 points 8 months ago

It's not plastic

[–] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I just use a reusable filter for loose tea. Oxo makes a nice one.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yup, tea cakes with a reusable metal filter. Each cake is wrapped in paper, not plastic. Then you just use a metal mesh filter.

[–] EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works 10 points 8 months ago

How much tea does one of those cakes make or do you break them up beforehand?

[–] Hello_there@kbin.social 22 points 8 months ago

Micro plastic stew

[–] naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Almost all teabags contain plastic. They're heat sealed. Remember, if you're old enough, they used to be stapled closed?

Yep capitalism is awesome.

[–] Jtskywalker@lemm.ee 9 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Some still are. Bigelow I think.

But loose leaf tea is much better quality anyway and avoids the issue of what's in the bag entirely. They also have ceramic filters so you can completely avoid having plastic in contact with hot water

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Nacktmull@lemmy.world 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Laughs in loose leaf

[–] pleb_maximus@feddit.de 9 points 8 months ago (9 children)

Loose leaf club!

signature look of superiority

load more comments (9 replies)

[–] ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Some brands now use plant or cellulose derived material for their tea bags. Though they still use plastic for the outer wrappers, which is a bit annoying.

[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

now

Now?! That used to be the default until some hipster companies started fucking shit up with their shitty plastic pyramid bags.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] guyrocket@kbin.social 15 points 8 months ago (8 children)

Isn't it cheaper to buy loose tea and use a tea ball? Does that avoid this entire problem?

[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I bought a giant bag of lapsang souchon and usually just use my french press. I also bought like a hundred empty paper tea pouches that have alson been good for making spiced apple juice

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments (7 replies)

[–] Vendul@feddit.de 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do worry, there is micro plastic in the tea and in the water

[–] Magnetar@feddit.de 13 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Also in your blood, brain, tissue, children, pets, ...

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] RozhkiNozhki@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I drink tea from similar bags and they look the same but they are actually biodegradable SOILON bags, maybe this one is too?

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 12 points 8 months ago (5 children)

How do you know it's plastic? I doubt that it is. Fabric can be made airproof by wetting it. That's how you can use your pants as a life vest too.

[–] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 8 months ago (3 children)

These are extremely common tea bags found all over the world that are well known to be made of plastic.

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (4 replies)

[–] rolling_resistance@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

I was in a supermarket recently, and looked at the tea selection (I usually buy it at a more specialized place). There were almost no options without bags; quite disappointing.

load more comments