October challenge: tea and coffee
The WasteLess October challenge is to minimise use of tea and coffee bags and coffee pods for reasons of our health, resources needed to produce them, and waste created when we dispose of them. When we pour hot water over tea and coffee bags, there’s a fair chance we’re drinking plastic, and we’re creating more waste. In addition, enormous resources are needed to produce these single-use items. Why not enjoy a good cuppa made from leaf tea or real coffee - it doesn’t take much more time to prepare. For more thoughts about tea and coffee here.
Did you know that many tea and coffee bags that appear to be made of paper or silk contain plastic in the bag, string or glue (www.beyondplastics.org/fact-sheets/microplastics-in-tea)? Not good for our health!
One way we can minimise waste every day is to reduce use of tea and coffee bags and coffee pods. Tea leaves and coffee grounds can be composted or put on the garden, but the bags and pods are usually waste. Pods can only be recycled by retailers or producers willing to collect them, and they are too small and composed of the wrong mixed plastics, sometimes with aluminium, for our streetside recycling bins. Estimates are that only 10% of coffee pods are recycled, otherwise they take around 500 years to break down into ever-smaller particles.
WasteLess suggests that we should consider not only this waste, but also the enormous resources needed, particularly energy and water, to produce an item destined to be used once only and discarded, usually into landfill. Freshly-ground coffee, whole beans and leaf tea are available in many flavours and strengths from supermarkets and coffee shops, and with a stylish pot or plunger, or a single cup steeped from an infuser, make good gifts as we start to think about Christmas. A fresh brew from grounds in a plunger or non-pod machine is a homely pleasure.
When away from home, instead of getting your coffee or tea in a throw-away cup, have your hot drink at a café which uses crockery – it will taste much better. Even if a reusable cup is used only three times, its environmental cost is calculated to be 15% less than the production, supply and disposal of three disposable cups. Moreover, it takes seven times more water to produce a throw-away cup than is used to wash a ceramic cup during its lifetime. If you don’t have time to sit in the café to enjoy your cuppa, then take your own reusable cup. It is estimated that Australians use 1.5 billion disposable coffee cups each year, most ending up in landfill. As an additional incentive, some cafés offer a discount for customers who bring their own.