Packaging for instant coffee made out of seaweed

To cut costs companies typically make teabags out of polypropylene plastic instead of paper or alternatives. The problem is not a lack of alternatives but that people aren’t aware (or don’t care) that they are made of plastic. I mean, it looks like paper. It’s a good thing that they are using this seaweed but it’s not a “solved problem” until the negative PR cost to these companies is higher that the cost of using non plastic alternatives. I just don’t understand why more companies are not using this in their marketing campaigns. … It’s almost as if there there really is no competition at all. It’s almost as if most brands are owned by the same company. Unilever ;)

This article makes me feel like an old ranty man in the pub.<p>We have glass jars with coffee in. Using a spoon was apparently too difficult for some people, so we created plastic mesh bags to put the coffee in.<p>For whatever reason, some of these people decided that putting plastic in the bin was some sort of insurmountable task and so threw it out of the window.<p>So we now need to remake these (utterly pointless) plastic bags into something else, so that they can be thrown out of the window or whatever.<p>It&#x27;s all just utterly bizarre.

Seaweed is often contaminated with heavy metals and radioactive isotopes that no one wants coming near their food.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;10898404&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;10898404&#x2F;</a>

Get a tea ball infuser or strainer. Buy loose leaf tea. Done. This is such a trivially simple type of packaging to avoid.

All of these plastic replacements don&#x27;t tackle the biggest issue with plastic replacement and that&#x27;s how to replace plastic and still be able to use the manufacturing machines. Those machines would be super expensive to replace. I suspect that by now all those machines and the production lines have been paid for and the owners would be unlikely to just stop using them because the pods need to be made of something else.

Yeah, I had a scare about plastic in the tea bags a while ago, as I tend to drink 1 or 2 cups of tea a day from tea bags. I found this brand, Clipper [0], that makes a plastic-free tea bag. Shipping from the UK takes a while, but the tea is pretty darn good, and I&#x27;m glad to no longer be ingesting micro plastics.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clipper-teas.us&#x2F;about&#x2F;our-sustainability&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clipper-teas.us&#x2F;about&#x2F;our-sustainability&#x2F;</a>

FYI, there is a current option. We use Woken brand pods for a nespresso machine. Fully compostable. I’m not a coffee connoisseur, but I think they’re way better than Keurig (sp?).

Ugh, Keurig - the most expensive, wasteful way to make a mediocre cup of coffee.<p>And the hardware breaks too

I wish I could invest in this company by buying some tokens on a decentralized exchange like Uniswap.<p>Being forced to jump through a regimented set of due diligence checks, or to surrender my privacy via warrantless KYC disclosure requirements, just to invest, does far more harm than good on the balance.