STiR coffee and tea magazine

STiR coffee and tea 43 HST Tea Bag Machines better simple econom ic Giant pot size Double chamber tea bags knotted or stapled fl avour save fl avour save H&S Tee-Gesellschaft | eMail: machines@hst.eu | www.HST.eu Biodegradable is best Paper and biodegradable plastics decompose by the action of living organisms, usually microbes. These microorganisms give off carbon dioxide, water, and biomass under industrial com- posting conditions that require temperatures of at least 140 o F (60 o C). To meet European Union (EU) standards tea bags made with bioplastics must break down in less than 12 weeks. In contrast, long-polymer plastics including polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, poly(vinyl chloride), and poly(ethylene terephthalate) degrade into smaller and smaller fragments (ul- timately nano sized) that are not biodegradable. Some plastics made from petroleum, such as PBS (polybutylene succinate) biodegrades and some plastics that originate from renewable bio- mass such as polyethylene and Nylon 11 are non-biodegradable. There is no lower limit to the size of nanoplastic particles but these are generally measured in micrometers. There are no known ill-effects from ingesting what amounts to 60 micrograms – 60 millionths of a gram of plastic released by teabags but it is under- standable that consumers would seek assurance from the brands they favor. PET and nylon used in making mesh teabags are certi- fied as food-grade, a standard that limits degeneration to 10 mil- ligrams per square meter of surface area in contact with foods. It is not known how much nanoplastic is in the environ- ment. The World Health Organization (WHO), in a technical report issued in 2019 concluded "there is insufficient infor- mation to draw firm conclusions on the toxicity related to the physical hazard of plastic particles, particularly for the nano size particles, no reliable information suggests it is a concern." WHO based its conclusions on drinking-water samples where "fragments and fibers were the predominant particle shapes and polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene were the poly- mers most detected." Particle counts ranged from around 0 to 1,000 particles/liter with a high of 10,000 particles/liter. "Stud- ies on absorption indicate that microplastics >150 µm are likely to be excreted directly through feces," writes WHO. In November the University of Victoria in Canada an- nounced a study that found individuals ingest 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles from food a year. "The totals could be higher," according to research biolo- gist Kieran Cox, a marine biology PhD candidate who authored the paper published in the journal ACS Environmental Science and Technologhy. Someone who drinks mostly bottled water could injest an additional 90,000 pieces yearly. Breathing induces an- other 35,000 to 69,000 particles per year, he said. By looking at the amounts of these foods people ate the team estimates a person's average microplastic consumption is between 70,000 and 121,000 particles per year Cox told the Globe & Mail, "the likelihood that it's an under- estimate of your total consumption over the year is pretty high." "The last thing I want to do is cause some sort of undue alarm," he said. "But even if we're considering what I would call a pretty limited literature [26 studies], we're getting into hundreds of thousands (of particles) a year. That's a non-trivial dose." Dr. Jerry Burch, product compliance manager at Glatfelter Composite Fibers Business Unit, wrote, "The presence and in- gestion of microplastics in the human body and any potential health implications are a relatively new subject." He said the European Food Safety Authority has stated that microplastics are "unlikely to pose a health risk to humans." The German BfR (Federal Institute for Risk Assessment) found that microplastic

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