A couple of days ago, I found myself getting rather irate with teabags – and I don’t even drink tea; well, black, green or white anyway. I do like a black coffee, but long gone are the days when I could swig it back without a care and now it is just the one; the glorious first thing in the morning life-affirming, granting, saving cup that I allow myself. Unless I’m feeling daring, then perhaps two. (Any more than that then I have to have a shaky lie down and pep talk from MOTH to assuage the jitters.) In lieu of these staples then, I amass a large selection of herbal teas because, although many of them are very nice and I do enjoy them – mostly; they are just not as satisfying somehow and can become, quite honestly, boring!
But why have they annoyed me so much of late? Well, apart from the frankly quite ludicrous price of some of the trendier branded ones, it’s because I rather naively have spent the last couple of years putting them on the compost heap.
Now, before any more-experienced composters (compostitioners? Compostees?) out there start tutting and shaking their heads, this is still quite new to us and yes, there were mistakes. I don’t know why, but I had mistakingly assumed that teabags would decompose thinking they were made from paper. They do not. They are not. Bah!
I have been feeling the rise of gardener’s itchy fingers; not an ailment requiring medical attention, but more the pricking of the yearn and need to be out awakening the garden from its winter sleep and readying it for the year ahead. I feel as if I am in the blocks, sweat band on, starting pistol raised – and yet, we are not quite ready for the off. I may be thinking of potato chitting and seed sowing, but not only is it still slightly too early, I don’t trust the weather. This time last year we were being hounded by The Beast from the East and after what has felt like an incredibly mild winter, can it really be that the worst is done?
So instead of the fun stuff, I have been doing some of the less exciting jobs; including sorting out the compost pens – back to teabags. Our first year’s compost is ready to use; it is dry and crumbly, fragrance free – perfect – apart from one or two things that have now solidly entered the banned list and will never be going on again. The reason I will be particularly firm on this is, that I sifted through every spadeful that came out of the pen and removed the non-decomposed detritus. In the rogues gallery, first and foremost we have teabags, followed by corks (again, naivety came into play where I thought cork, that’s natural, it will be fine – nope!) and mango stones. Due to having a prolific plum tree, the prep for pies and preserves producing mountains of stones; this year, I will also not be adding all these to the heap for their tendency to hang about somewhat.
But, it wasn’t having to sift out the teabags that annoyed me as such, it was realising that they were not biodegradable. A quick look online and it seems as if in the UK alone, there are around 62 billion cups of tea drunk a year – 96% of which are made from teabags, which begs the question: where are they all now?
Like so many people I am sickened by the sheer volume of rubbish and waste that we produce as a species and, although we are not huge consumers and take care to recycle as much as we can, MOTH and I are increasingly trying to put into effect where possible, the two factors that are even better than recycling: firstly – reduce, secondly – reuse.
The first point is one that is getting a lot of people up in arms because it feels as if we are fighting a losing battle sometimes. When even a pomelo (a fruit which comes with THE thickest natural wrapping) comes in shrink wrapped plastic, then what chance do we have? Our weekly food shop is fast becoming a time of exasperated swearing and huffing.
The second point can at least be a little more fun; or if not fun, perhaps satisfying and you should never underestimate the creativity people can muster when they put their minds to it.
I am madly obsessed with Pinterest at the moment – a place where there is something for everyone and you can end up chasing down a glorious rabbit hole of interests. If you want to be inspired about things you can re-use, regularly thrown away items for, I very much encourage you to look around. There is everything from sublime works of art made out of pre-used items to practical, useful objects or cleverly mended and altered clothes to extend their life.
Have fun and in the meantime, I will leave you with a few of my own.
