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To: Yorkshire Tea, Typhoo, Tetley and Twinings

Remove plastic from teabags

This campaign has ended.

Remove plastic from their teabags

Why is this important?

The petition I started last year with 38 Degrees to remove all plastic from tea bags succeeded in persuading the UK's largest tea bag manufacturer, Unilever/PG Tips to remove plastics from their teabags.

But the other leading UK teabag manufacturers are still using plastics in their teabags.

The issue of having these plastics (polypropylene) in teabags is a concern. 20-25% plastic in each teabag is not a small or insignificant amount when multiplied up by the millions and millions of tea bags consumed daily. These plastics do not biodegrade in the environment.

There have been many campaigns to keep plastics and microplastics out of our seas, highlighting the harm they do to marine life. But the same is true of plastics on land as they can cause harm to birds and small mammals. We need to keep ALL plastics OUT of our environment.

We know that it is possible to use other materials that are biodegradable and I am told by a major European teabag paper manufacturer that there is a “Gold Standard” of cellulose-based bags that will readily compost in your garden compost bin, which, in fact, goes a stage better than the PLA-based bags about to be employed by PG Tips and Coop.

With your support, we can make the other UK teabag manufacturers remove plastic from their tea bags.

Updates

2018-11-29 09:19:35 +0000

Petition is successful with 177,100 signatures

2018-11-21 19:25:17 +0000

Hi everyone,
I've now had replies from the rest of the major teabag manufacturers. They have all now committed to removing plastics from their teabag material. Most have already tested new materials and are starting to roll out the new bags. 2019 will see them removing plastics entirely from their bags, so this is a great win for you, me and 38-Degrees whose support throughout has been brilliant.

I started the original campaign back in August 2017. It was great to hear from PG Tips saying they were going to make the switch. The second campaign targeting the other four major manufacturers kicked off early in 2018. It has been a long process to get to this point.

But none of this would have been possible without your fantastic support. I'd like to say a very big thank you to you all.

Mike

2018-09-22 08:18:53 +0100

Given the huge press interest in plastic waste throughout this year, I have just written again to all the major UK teabag producers asking them to give a firm commitment to removing plastics from their teabags. Thanks for all your support. It's been brilliant! One more push and we could get the petition to 200,000 signatures, which would give the campaign an added impetus. Please ask all your friends to lend it their support.

2018-04-30 22:37:21 +0100

150,000 signatures reached

2018-03-18 10:27:45 +0000

100,000 signatures reached

2018-03-08 14:33:48 +0000

50,000 signatures reached

2018-03-07 18:03:45 +0000

20,000 signatures reached

2018-03-07 16:22:11 +0000

10,000 signatures reached

2018-03-07 15:57:39 +0000

5,000 signatures reached

2018-03-07 14:17:53 +0000

1,000 signatures reached

2018-03-07 14:09:45 +0000

500 signatures reached

2018-03-07 14:03:17 +0000

100 signatures reached

2018-03-07 14:02:05 +0000

50 signatures reached

2018-03-07 14:01:14 +0000

25 signatures reached

2018-03-07 14:00:11 +0000

10 signatures reached