Summary
A new study from Spain’s Autonomous University of Barcelona reveals that tea bags made from nylon, polypropylene, and cellulose release billions of micro- and nanoplastic particles when steeped in boiling water.
These particles, which can enter human intestinal cells, may pose health risks, potentially affecting the digestive, respiratory, endocrine, and immune systems.
Researchers urge regulatory action to mitigate plastic contamination in food packaging.
Consumers are advised to use loose-leaf tea with stainless steel infusers or biodegradable tea bags to minimize exposure.
“The study shows that, when brewing tea, polypropylene releases approximately 1.2 billion particles per milliliter, with an average size of 136.7 nanometres; cellulose releases about 135 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 244 nanometres; while nylon-6 releases 8.18 million particles per milliliter, with an average size of 138.4 nanometres.”
What do you mean no it doesn’t?
So if you extrapolate the data, that’s 1 teabag per 2 ml water. Let’s be generous and say that 1 ml is about what you’d get in a cup of tea. That’s 8.18 million to 1.2 billion particles per teabag depending on the type. Let’s be generous and cut that in half due to the RPM of stirring. Maybe cut that in half again for that unspecified amount of time. Hell, let’s cut it in half again because maybe you brew at lower than 95 C. On the low end, we still have 1 million plastic microparticles per teabag. That’s insane.
I mean nothing about the methodology is even close to representing normal tea brewing behavior.
For starters, a typical cup of tea is around 300-350ml, not 2ml and certainly not 1, so the low end is already down to 23,371 particles even before accounting for the brewing technique.
Secondly, nobody holds their tea at an active boil while stirring it at 750 rpm. That’s virtually blending it. There isn’t a meaningful way to compare that to typical tea brewing behavior but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it produced 10,000x more particles.
Right. You still drink 300-350 ml per cup. It doesn’t matter if you did 1 teabag per 300 ml or 300 teabags per 300 ml. In the first instance, you would have to measure 300 ml to get the X particles per cup. In the second instance, you can get the X particles per ml which is effectively per cup, or more accordingly, per teabag. It’s the same. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think your math of 23k particles per teabag is not mathing.
Also, usually you don’t measure 1 teabag because of individual variability, so what they are doing is getting the average amount of particles from those 300 teabags. Much more accurate.
They likely are using a magnetic stir bar. 750 RPM will not virtually blend it. This video shows it going at 3000 RPM max for reference. (https://youtu.be/fzzV75aMM1c) In a large container, the water at the bottom will be swirling faster than the water at the top. And also, 95 C will not be at an active boil - that’s at 100 C. It suggests to me that they boiled water, then poured it into the teabag beaker.
I think that maybe you haven’t worked in a lab before, so it seems like the methodology isn’t right, but as a scientist, this passes the sniff test for me. Honestly, this part isn’t even the novel part of their study - the interesting part is that they found that intestinal cells took up the particles, but I digress.
You can’t draw any real world conclusions from this methodology.
Apples are safe to eat even though the seeds contain arsenic. Take a bunch of seeds and put them in a blender and test it. That test will show them being toxic.
I would like to see a methodology that is closer to real world use. No way to know if it’s a real problem.
Eat the seeds. Your tolerance is going to spite your enemies.