Carbon footprint of a cuppa!

Now we all love a cuppa, but have you ever thought about its carbon footprint? Is there a greener option? For example …..Where in the World was the tea grown? Where in the World does all the packaging come from? Where in the World was it blended and packaged? How much packaging does it have? Can you buy your tea with less packaging?  Or no packaging?

Think about this……..

Made in Horsham £20 contact others to choose from!

  • Loose tea has one tenth the carbon footprint of teabag tea
  • 21g CO2: black tea or coffee, boiling only the water you need
  • 53g CO2: white tea or coffee, boiling only the water you need
  • 71g CO2: white tea or coffee, boiling double the water you need
  • 235g CO2: a large cappuccino
  • 340g CO2: a large latte

Other drinks….

  • 374g CO2: a cup of beer
  • 129g CO2: a can of Coca Cola
  • 225g CO2: a cup of cow’s milk

This carbon footprint may not be as crucial as the homes we heat and the cars we drive but – depending on how we take them – hot drinks can make up a surprisingly large slice of our carbon footprints.

If you like drinking mint tea, have you ever thought about just picking some mint from the garden and putting it in a mug of hot water?  The only carbon footprint is boiling the water!

Green tea really is greener: the milk in a cup of white tea or coffee creates more C02 than boiling the water!

Teabags are made of plastic

The microfibres of polypropylene help strengthen the bags, but once the rest biodegrades they are left, and even in landfill their size renders them likely to be washed away. Plus how many end up in compost? So whilst an individual teabag may have negligible amounts, combined it’s huge. It is suggested that they are the biggest source of food waste in the UK, so should they be composted?

GOOD NEWS…..

21st July 2017 – The UK government just proposed the strongest ban on microbeads in the world to date. This is great news for our environment and a positive sign of Britain’s global leadership on ocean plastics.

Greener by far – choose loose tea

“Greening Sussex by Sussex families”