PG tips in hot water over plastic ban for its tea bags

Company promises irked customers it will improve biodegradable seal in its search for a greener tea

THE secret to a perfect cup of tea for George Orwell was, among other things, to use loose leaves. Yet for many of us the humble tea bag is a matter of convenience – as long as they work.

However, efforts by tea companies to go green have sparked anger among consumers as they struggle to develop plastic-free bags, with PG tips among those still trying to get it right.

Since rolling out its pyramid bags, which are free from a plastic seal known as polypropylene, the company is still trying to finesse the model, according to The Mail on Sunday.

It follows a deluge of complaints in which tea drinkers say the new biodegradable seal is not robust enough and breaks once infused in hot water.

The company made the switch from a plastic to a paper seal at the end of 2018, after a petition signed by more than 200,000 people called for an end to plastics in tea bags. Unlike polypropylene, the new material is made from corn starch and is fully biodegradable.

Environmentalists welcomed the move given Britain’s voracious appetite for tea – an estimated 165 million cups of tea are drunk each day, putting Britons third, behind Turkey and Ireland, as the world’s biggest tea drinkers, according to data company Statista.

Yet many say the new seal isn’t a patch on the heat-resistant plastic and have been urging the company to fix it.

“I have been loyal to PG tips for over 20 years but if you cannot solve this problem with split tea bags, I fear our friendship, Monkey, is doomed,” tweeted one customer, referring to the famous chimps featured in the company’s adverts.

One Reddit user said: “PG tips, [why] do your bags keep splitting? Driving me up the wall, feels like about 1 in 5 times the bag just splits when it gets wet!”

PG tips told one customer: “We’ve been working extremely hard to fix the problems and have made huge improvements at our factory in Manchester.”

PG tips isn’t alone in struggling to go green while maintaining a decent brew. In 2019, Yorkshire Tea apologised for its initial attempt to go green after some of its bags began “misbehaving”. The company said: “Since then, we’ve been doing a ton of work to get the new material working properly.

“It’s a lot trickier to work with than tea bag paper which uses oil-based plastic – there are a few things which can cause problems with the final seal. We’ve got to the bottom of some of them but we’ve not quite cracked them all yet.”

It reintroduced the plant-based tea bags in 2021, saying they “have well and truly landed”. The Co-op supermarket reportedly launched its own range of plastic-free tea bags three years after it first announced the move.

New Scientist reported how a Canadian team of scientists found that steeping the plastic in water at 95C releases about 11.6 billion microplastics, which can cause inflammation and irritation, and potentially cancer.

A PG tips spokesman said: “A small number of our tea bags weren’t working so well with the new plant-based material causing issues with the seal.

“We are sorry our consumers had to experience this. We have been working extremely hard to fix this and have made improvements. We commit to making more progress in 2023 to delivering a perfect cuppa.”