Nick Palmer
11-16-2009, 09:28 AM
Hi everybody, I'm a new member. I notice in the latest "Urban Sustainable Living" ezine that you recommend composting tea bags.
excerpt from http://www.urbansustainableliving.com/Composting_1-2-3.html
What to compost: Grass clippings, shredded leaves, pine needles, Wood ashes, Sawdust, Houseplant trimmings, hair, Shredded cardboard, shredded newspaper, Wooden toothpicks, Paper towels paper napkins, tissues, coffee grounds, Tea bags & grounds, cotton swabs, & Greeting card envelopes.
Do not directly compost tea bags! I seem to be fighting a one-man campaign about the following aspect because it does not seem to be known about amongst composters.
Most common tea bags contain a percentage of plastic fibres that the packagers put in so the bag can be heat-sealed during manufacture. These can be polyester, pvc or polypropylene. The bottom line is that if you just throw your tea bags into your wormery, you will find a couple of years later, when you harvest your first worm compost, that it contains impenetrable nets of plastic tea bag "ghosts" that the worms couldn't eat.
It's not easy to see this effect in a normal large bin, because the turning process scrunches up the "ghosts", but it is obvious in a wormery.
Here is a link to a post I did about this on my sustainability blog (http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com/2009/05/worms-tea-bags-and-tissues.html)
Nowadays, I let the bags cool a little, rip 'em and then pour out the leaves into my compost caddy. I'm strongly considering "going back" to using loose leaf tea and a metal infuser which should reduce my waste a little...
Nick Palmer
excerpt from http://www.urbansustainableliving.com/Composting_1-2-3.html
What to compost: Grass clippings, shredded leaves, pine needles, Wood ashes, Sawdust, Houseplant trimmings, hair, Shredded cardboard, shredded newspaper, Wooden toothpicks, Paper towels paper napkins, tissues, coffee grounds, Tea bags & grounds, cotton swabs, & Greeting card envelopes.
Do not directly compost tea bags! I seem to be fighting a one-man campaign about the following aspect because it does not seem to be known about amongst composters.
Most common tea bags contain a percentage of plastic fibres that the packagers put in so the bag can be heat-sealed during manufacture. These can be polyester, pvc or polypropylene. The bottom line is that if you just throw your tea bags into your wormery, you will find a couple of years later, when you harvest your first worm compost, that it contains impenetrable nets of plastic tea bag "ghosts" that the worms couldn't eat.
It's not easy to see this effect in a normal large bin, because the turning process scrunches up the "ghosts", but it is obvious in a wormery.
Here is a link to a post I did about this on my sustainability blog (http://nickpalmer.blogspot.com/2009/05/worms-tea-bags-and-tissues.html)
Nowadays, I let the bags cool a little, rip 'em and then pour out the leaves into my compost caddy. I'm strongly considering "going back" to using loose leaf tea and a metal infuser which should reduce my waste a little...
Nick Palmer