Plastic in tea bags: Luxury brands leak billions of microplastics into your drink, study finds

Premium tea bags are shedding billions of microplastics into drinks your cup, a new study has found.

Most tea bags are made from paper, but some luxury brands have switched to a type of plastic mesh for their product.

Canadian researchers found that a number of these were leaking high levels of microplastics into water.

Microplastics have become increasingly widespread in the environment, found in cosmetics, tap and bottled waters, and in some foods.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said such particles in drinking water do not appear to pose a risk, but also stressed that this conclusion is based on "limited information" and further investigations were needed.

The study’s authors, from McGill University in Montreal, also called for more research into the health effects of microplastics, defined as small (less than 5mm in length) pieces of plastic debris.

For their investigation, published in the journal of Environmental Science and Technology, the team analysed four different commercial teas packaged in plastic teabags.

The researchers removed the tea leaves and placed the empty bags in water heated to 95C (203F), as if though they were brewing a cuppa.

They found that the plastic variety released around 11.6billion microplastics and 3.1billion smaller nanoplastic particles, per bag, into the water.

The particles are invisible to the naked eye.

One of the researcher’s Laura Hernandez said her team were shocked by the amount of particles released by the bags, compared to other items such as bottled water.

She said this could be partly because the study focused on the tiniest of particles, but also because the water they used was almost boiling, rather than at room temperature.

Ms Hernandez said the study would help consumers, particularly those looking to reduce their plastic use, become more aware of their purchases.

She said: “There is really no need to package tea in plastic, which at the end of the day becomes single-use plastic, and which is contributing to you not just ingesting plastic but to the environmental burden of plastic.