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Waste Diversion Elevated Enviro Ratings:

Tetley Care Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea

How does Tetley Care Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea rate in terms of it's ability to be diverted from the landfills after use? It could've been the most sustainable product that we have reviewed yet but it's packaging took that away, here's why.

The outside packaging is made up of a mix of materials; plastic, metal, paper and foil. The foil and paper are blended together. This blend makes it all but impossible to recycle. The paper and foil would have to be separated and the cost and scale of doing this makes it very difficult and in most markets it can not be done. As a result it is landfilled. The metal bottom is attached and would need to be separated, this does not occur in most facilities. The plastic lid can pop off but like many other products we do not know the quality of the plastic and the quality is likely low. Low quality plastic does not typically have a market to be recycled so it gets landfilled. Also, the size of the plastic lid is small and will miss most sorting facilities and be landfilled.

The tea bags and the tea inside of them are an organic food waste product and can be placed in an organics food waste bin. organic waste is typically turned into fertilizer or fuel.

This product could've had a really high score in terms of waste diversion and recyclability. If the product used a paper based box or can instead of a mix of materials it would have been very sustainable.

Because of this we give Tetley Care Lemon Ginger Herbal Tea a 1.5 out of 5.