Are teabags a threat to our health?

Plastic teabags release nano-plastics into drink, which may lead to harmful effects on human beings

Plastic teabags shed micro and nano-size plastic into your drink, research finds. Because the possible health effects of ingesting the particles are unknown, the work suggests the need for further investigation. Over time, plastic breaks down into tiny microplastics and even smaller nano-plastics, the latter of which are less than 100 nanometers (nm) in size. For scale, a human hair has a diameter of about 75,000 nm.

While scientists have previously detected micro-plastics in the environment, tap and bottled waters, and some foods, Nathalie Tufenkji, professor of chemical engineering at McGill University, and colleagues wondered whether recently introduced plastic teabags could be releasing micro- and nanoplastics into beverages during brewing.

To conduct their analysis, the researchers purchased four different commercial teas packaged in plastic teabags. The researchers cut open the bags and removed the tea leaves so that they wouldn’t interfere with the analysis. Then, they heated the emptied teabags in water to simulate brewing tea.

Using electron microscopy, the team found that a single plastic teabag at brewing temperature released about 11.6 billion micro-plastic and 3.1 billion nano-plastic particles into the water. These levels were thousands of times higher than those reported previously in other foods.

The team also explored the effects of the released particles on small aquatic organisms called Daphnia magna, or water fleas, which are model organisms often used in environmental studies. The researchers treated water fleas with various doses of the micro- and nano-tics released from the teabags. Although the animals survived, they did show some anatomical and behavioural abnormalities.

The first author of the study, PhD student Laura Hernandez, says more research is needed to determine if the plastics could have more subtle or chronic effects on humans.