It’s time to switch to bulk tea. Canadian researchers recently analyzed placing four different tea bags into boiling water and found that a single bag releases around 11.6 billion microplastic particles, thousands of times higher than the amount of plastic previously found in other food and drink. The tea was removed from the bags, which are often made with polypropylene, so that it wouldn’t interfere with the results. The health effects of drinking microplastics are unknown and more study is need.

Microplastics in tea bags