Forum home The potting shed
This Forum will close on Wednesday 27 March, 2024. Please refer to the announcement on the Discussions page for further detail.

Teabags

13

Posts

  • raisingirlraisingirl Posts: 7,093
    @BenCotto all of the examples you cite are doing better than someone who never thinks about it. No one is ever going to be perfect and if we all keep banging on about hypocrisy for anyone who eats chips and buys diet fizzy drinks, we're effectively saying no effort is worthwhile unless it is perfect. The sad truth is that all efforts, even perfection, will not stop climate change tomorrow. 1.5degrees is already a bust. The hope is that the aggregation of many big efforts, albeit imperfect ones, will add up to enough to avert the worst. If we try really hard to be better, we may keep it under 2degrees.
    Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon

    “It's still magic even if you know how it's done.” 
  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    Also - @BenCotto - the point about bits of plastic in teabags (and some varieties of otherwise plastic-free teabag have plastic in the "seal" which closes the bag) as opposed to plastic bags is that nobody puts plastic bags in their compost heap, whereas most gardeners expect teabags to be compostable.  Finding foreign bodies in carefully-made compost is annoying.

    I collect my used teabags in a marg pot and empty them into the compost bin when I can be bothered.  The outsides go in the rubbish, since I can't tell which bags contain plastic and which are paper.
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    Well put, @raisingirl.  Thank you.
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • FireFire Posts: 19,096
    edited June 2022
    I have used Clipper for the last few years and have not noticed any bags remaining in the compost, but I will look more closely the next time I dig out. Sigh.

    Help out in the UCL tea bag trial

  • Jenny_AsterJenny_Aster Posts: 945
    To clarify, I'm no tea drinker, but my OH is.

    Just can't understand why people use tea bags? Surely it's not that much of an inconvenience to use tea leaves the old-fashioned way and to turf out teapot and strainer dregs onto the nearest flowerbed to the back door, or to even use the dregs to water houseplants? 

    Just how much of a convenience / timesaver are teabags?
    Trying to be the person my dog thinks I am! 

    Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border.
  • I suspect the majority of people make their tea directly in the mug rather than using teapots. I certainly do!
  • TopbirdTopbird Posts: 8,355
    I have a teapot but the only time I use it is when mother-in-law visits. We only drink tea really and use a teabag in the mug. I compost my teabags (W'rose basic own brand). I occasionally find the skins still intact if the compost is allowed to get a bit too dry. They rot down well when it's kept more moist.
    Heaven is ... sitting in the garden with a G&T and a cat while watching the sun go down
  • Jenny_AsterJenny_Aster Posts: 945
    edited June 2022
    pansyface said:
    Jenny, you haven't met my OH. Capable of covering the kitchen in anything damp and crumbly.  Think Mr Pastry, if you are old enough to remember him. Tea bags save my sanity.🙂
     :D I loved Mr Pastry and his wife Kitty (hoping my memory hasn't failed here)
    Trying to be the person my dog thinks I am! 

    Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border.
  • didywdidyw Posts: 3,573
    I couldn't bear Mr Pastry!  I've never been a fan of slapstick.  I'm afraid my teabags - of which there are many - I drink tea all day long -  go into the general waste.  Our council stopped the food waste collections a while ago so all cooked food waste, meat scraps etc have to go in the general waste bin - but we do line that bin with a fully compostable liner.  Peelings etc of course go in the home compost bin.  
    Gardening in East Suffolk on dry sandy soil.
  • PianoplayerPianoplayer Posts: 624
    I have a new osteospermum which is failing to flourish, and I wondered if it was trapped inside one of those tea-bag things that @B3 talked about at the start of this thread. Will probably have to un-pot it and have a look (when it stops raining) but in the meantime, here's a couple of things I found. Really annoying - apparently they are called jiffy pellets.

    https://gardenprofessors.com/another-wow-why-oh-why-biodegradable-mesh-for-plugs/

    https://youtu.be/fjuGcir5IM0
Sign In or Register to comment.