The Microplastic in Your Tea Bag and How to Avoid It
Microplastics are everywhere. They are used in everyday products likes water bottles and tea bags. In this article, you will learn what microplastics are and why they're so detrimental to our health.
In September of 2019, several researchers at McGill University found that one tea bag can release more than 11 billion microplastic particles, as well as 3 billion nano plastic particles when steeped in boiling water.
Well, as terrifying as this sounds, there are several solutions to microplastics and nano plastics in your teabags. We do not want to cause you to fear or alarm with this article, but microplastics can have detrimental effects on the human body. It is important to try to avoid ingesting microplastics and when it is an inevitable situation where you will ingest microplastics, it's best to limit their situations.
Here, we will explain the variety of microplastics that can be found in tea bags, what microplastics are, what they can do to your body, and how you can avoid ingesting microplastics when brewing your tea.
We hope you enjoy and read on to find out more about microplastics in tea bags!
What are Mircoplastics?
Microplastics are incredibly small pieces of plastic. Yes, plastic as in plastic that you use for containers, straws, jewelry, cosmetic bottles, phone cases and so much more. Microplastics are becoming increasingly more common as an intruder in our everyday lives.
Microplastics are defined as a piece of plastic that is less than 5 mm long. This means that this is an incredibly small piece of plastic. There can be a lot of different microplastics within one cup of tea or one teabag.
This is because plastic is one of the most common types of debris found in all bodies of water around the globe. It is almost impossible to find a body of water that has been untouched by microplastics. Microplastics are so small that they can be carried into the rain cycle and rain down upon land, sea, and mountains.
Microplastics are truly everywhere. And now they are in your tea! So what do you do about microplastics? How can you avoid them and the damage they cause to your body?
First, let's explore what microplastics can do to your body and why it's important to avoid ingesting microplastics.
Why are Microplastics Bad?
Microplastics are such tiny pieces of plastic that they can get into your body through food or drink and wreak havoc all over your body.
One of the most common situations seen by ingesting too many microplastics is cell death. This is an extremely bad situation for your body to be in. You can also develop allergic reactions to certain things suddenly without warning.
In addition to all of that, microplastics also carry a huge variety of different contaminants inside of the plastic. Regardless of how small a piece of plastic is, it is plastic. Plastic is absorbent and can absorb the substances and materials around it and hold them for decades.
So, you can ingest microplastics that have been infused with trace metals, harmful chemicals, heavy metals, and toxic substances that can have severe medical and health impacts on your body.
Regardless of whether you think microplastics are an issue for the environment, it is no question that they are an issue for your body. Microplastics have also been linked to cancer. Many microplastics are carcinogenic, which means that they can encourage your body to create cancer cells and you can get cancer from too many microplastics.
Additionally, the polypropylene that can be in tea bags has been linked to harming your endocrine system, which is a huge and important system in your body to help regulate and filter your blood and body fluids. If your endocrine system isn't working properly your hormones can get off-kilter and your body can go a little bit crazy trying to fix it all.
Now you can see why it is so important to avoid microplastics, both in your tea and in your body. Additionally, you can see why they are bad for the environment as well. If you would not want it in your body, you would not want it in your tea or your oceans.
How Can I Avoid Microplastics?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of tea bags and tea brands that used microplastics on purpose in their teabags. This can make it very difficult to avoid ingesting microplastics, Especially if your favorite tea brand that you've been drinking for years has tea bags that have microplastics.
The best way to avoid ingesting microplastics is to find tea brands that use tea bags that do not have microplastics. There are a wide variety of tea brands that do not use microplastics in their tea bags, all you have to do is search up if your tea brand has microplastics in its teabags, and you can find out whether your favorite tea brand is one of those.
One of the easiest ways to avoid ingesting microplastics in tea is to switch from tea bags to loose leaf tea. Loose leaf tea is a great way to enjoy traditional methods of tea brewing without using tea bags that can contain microplastics.
Loose leaf tea has been popular for centuries and in a lot of countries around the world, however, in our Western society, it is now only becoming relatively popular in our day and age. This is because people are realizing that loose leaf tea is a great alternative to tea bags! You can get teapots that have infusers insides that you don't have the tea leaves floating willy-nilly around your teapot.
The last solution is to use instant tea. Instant tea is a great method to use as an alternative to traditional tea brewing. Instant tea is similar to instant coffee and has near the same brewing method.
Instant tea can be hand whisked or infused into the water using an electric mixer to make sure all the powder is mixed in. Once the powder is absorbed and the tea is brewed, you have a fresh cup or pot of tea without any microplastics and no need to use any teabags whatsoever!
Many people have not heard of instant tea yet, so we hope that we have turned you on to trying out instant tea as a method of avoiding the microplastics in tea bags!
