Storm in a teacup? PG Tips in hot water as eco-friendly bags fall apart
Customers complain as switch from plastic to paper seals means they can now break once in boiling liquid
PG Tips has faced a barrage of complaints after frustrated drinkers complained that its new eco-friendly tea bags fall apart.
The company made the switch from a plastic to a paper seal at the end of 2018, following a petition signed by more than 200,000 people calling for an end to plastics from tea bags.
Unlike polypropylene, the new material is made from corn starch and is fully biodegradable.
Environmentalists welcomed the move as a positive step given Britain’s voracious appetite for tea, with the country drinking 165 million cups a day, according to data firm Statista - behind only Turkey and Ireland.
Yet many claim the seal is not as robust as the heat-resistant plastic one used previously, as tea bags can now break apart once infused in hot water.
Customers have been urging the company to fix it, with one customer tweeting in 2018:
More recently, one Reddit user said: “PG tips, [why] do your bags keep splitting?”
“Driving me up the wall, feels like about one in five times the bag just splits when it gets wet!”
The Mail said 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 is not alone in struggling to go green while maintaining a decent brew.
'Misbehaving' tea bags
In 2019, Yorkshire Tea apologised for its initial attempt to go green after some of its bags began “misbehaving”.
“Since then we've been doing a ton of work to get the new material working properly on our machines,” said a spokesman for Yorkshire Tea.
“What we've found is that it's a lot trickier to work with than tea bag paper, which uses oil-based plastic - and there are a few different 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.
In 2019, the New Scientist reported that a Canadian team of scientists found that steeping a plastic tea bag in 95C (203F) water releases around 11.6 billion microplastics, which can cause inflammation and irritation, and potentially cancer.
A spokesman for PG Tips told the Mail: “We noticed that a small number of our teabags weren't working so well with the new plant-based material causing issues with the teabags' seal.
“We are sorry our consumers had to experience this.
“We have been working extremely hard to fix these issues and have made improvements. We commit to making more progress in 2023 to delivering a perfect cuppa.”