My name is Renee Koval. I am the Rise Above Plastics (RAP) Coordinator for the Gray’s Harbor Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. I was born, raised, educated, I worked, raised a family and retired here, in the Pacific Northwest. I’ve long been worried about the welfare of our planet, and I am happy to have found the Surfrider Foundation which provides a way I can participate in taking care of our environment.
For those of us trying to reduce single-use plastic from our homes, there are a lot of changes we can make, ones I’ve described in previous writings. But it isn’t an easy task. Plastic is so versatile and so cheap to produce that it pops up in places you don’t expect. Here are a few places where I bumped into that unwelcome guest.
Tea Bags
Sometimes I get so accustomed to things that I want to look past any inconvenient truths surrounding them. That’s how I felt about tea bags. Because tea bags are so convenient and allow me to have a nice variety of tea on hand, I chose to ignore the truth that those little bags are commonly composed of polypropylene, nylon and / or Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) plastic. This is to seal the bag and to give it enough strength to hold its shape while brewing. But hot water encourages the formation of micro and nano plastics, and we drink these down with each sip.
A couple of events reminded me that it was time to think a little more seriously about the tea I drink daily. The first happened while I was making an inventory of my personal plastic use, (“Make an Inventory” posted Sept 5, 2024). For a month, instead of tossing my plastic waste in the appropriate bin, I put it aside to learn what plastic waste I was accumulating. It was eye-opening to see how large a pile I’d built up of the little plastic-layered foil envelopes that tea bags are often packaged in. I decided it was time to search out brands that wrapped the bags in paper. However, I continued tossing the used tea bags in my compost bin.
The day came when I finally decided to spread around the compost I’d started two years ago. That was the moment those tea bags came back to haunt me! Even though the tea leaves had long since turned to soil, I pulled bag after bag out of my compost. So, it was proven to be true. There indeed is plastic in the bags themselves; microplastics that I’d been adding to my garden soil. That day I searched for a small metal mesh tea strainer, and bought some loose tea which I found at The Market Place in Aberdeen.
While researching tea bags for this writing, I came across the following information. The Center for Environmental Health, a US non-profit working to keep dangerous chemicals out of our environment, lists the following brands as plastic free: Stash, Numi, Pukka, Yogi, Republic of Tea, and Traditional Medicinals. However, even though the tea bags are plastic-free, only Pukka and Republic of Tea use compostable paper for the individual tea bag wrappers. The other brands use paper with layered plasticized foil.
Laundry Sheets
I was quite disappointed to discover that another source of plastic pollution comes from the laundry sheets I found so very convenient and space saving. The brand I’d been using states “Plastic Jug-Free Recyclable Packaging” on the label; but a closer examination of the same label lists the first ingredient as polyvinyl alcohol (PVA / PVOH). PVA is a plastic that helps the laundry strips keep their shape, and is the same plastic used to encase the detergent in laundry and dishwasher pods. PVA / PVOH dissolves in water, but the degree to which it biodegrades is unknown, as explained in a May 2024 article in Consumer Reports, “What Is PVA and What Is It Used For?”
Personally, when it comes to protecting our environment, I prefer to lean to the side of caution, especially when truly plastic-free alternatives are available. I have found these products on Blueland and Meliora. Green Llama also has PVA / PVOH-free cleaning products available from the website ZeroWasteOutlet.
Aluminum Can Linings
While working to eliminate single-use plastic from my home, I always felt relieved that some of the items I used regularly were packed in recyclable aluminum or tin cans. I was devastated to learn that these cans are actually lined with a thin layer of plastic. In fact cans have been lined with the potentially cancer-causing, endocrine disrupting bisphenol A (BPA) resin since the 1960s to serve as a protection against corrosion and also to preserve the flavor of canned food. This bit of information became another of those inconvenient truths that I tried to pretend didn’t exist.
However, during a class about plastics that I took in 2024, a classmate submitted photos that dramatically illustrated the truth. In the first photo an aluminum can was dipped in muriatic acid to dissolve the aluminum. The second photo showed that after the aluminum was dissolved, a thin plastic bag remained.
During the class we were asked if our only choice was between a beverage in a plastic bottle or one in an aluminum can, which we would choose. The consensus was mixed. Those who worried about the environment chose to drink from a can, as bottles add more plastic to the environment. But others elected to drink from the bottle, as chemical leaching from the aluminum can lining is more concentrated.
As we become more aware of the dangers of BPA plastic, some companies are turning to other chemicals to add to can linings. We see more offerings marked as “BPA free.” But we must be a little wary that “BPA free” indicates a safer product because, as described in the article from the Center for Environmental Health titled “Is Canned Food Safe from BPA Now?” the alternatives have often not been proven to be less harmful.
As awareness of the dangers of plastic is spreading into the public consciousness, it’s hard to know what to believe. Plastic producers, government health agencies, independent research, customer price and convenience seem to have conflicting ideas about what is acceptable when it comes to plastic. It’s hard to know what to believe. At times like this fall back onto the one truth that cannot be denied. We’ve generated so much plastic waste that there simply isn’t any place to put it. So, while I debate internally whether to buy that tea I like and not worry about the microplastics filtering into the brew, I land on one point. There’s simply too much plastic for our earth to deal with, so I’m not going to add to the pile.