Fancy A Cuppa?

A hundred million cups of tea – that’s how many we drink in the UK each day, almost all of it from teabags.

But what’s the impact on the environment?

A growing tea plant absorbs carbon dioxide, which helps to mitigate climate change.

However, if land is deforested to grow more tea, and fertilisers and pesticides applied, the carbon count goes up.

Processing the leaves takes energy, and then there’s the impact from shipping and packaging.

At home, we boil an energy-hungry kettle to brew our drink, before disposing of the bag.

Once in landfill, teabags give off methane – a powerful greenhouse gas.

Circular Ecology, an environmental consultancy, estimated the carbon footprint of tea over its whole life cycle.

They came up with a figure of 31.5 kg Co2equivalent for every kilo of tea.

Then they worked out the effect of boiling more water than needed and adding dairy milk. It came to almost 15 kg Co2equivalent

more per kilo!

The good news? Many local food waste collection schemes are used for energy production.

According to waste charity Wales Recycles, just two tea bags can produce enough energy to recharge a smartphone. Now that’s refreshing!

Every year, fishing takes more than seven million tonnes of tuna from the sea Source: un.org.