a packaging question?

Customer question time:

Dear Bellevue tea,  I’d like to know if the packaging you use is fully recyclable.    I’m looking to  buy delicious products with totally sustainable packaging only.  Thanks for your time and looking forward to hearing from you.  

Clare says:

Thank you very much for your email.

Our main aim at bellevue tea is to maximise taste while minimising waste so we understand your concerns. We are constantly working towards making our products’ packaging more sustainable.  The main challenge for us is that tea is perishable. It needs a good barrier against light and air to maintain its quality. There are now some biodegradable corn starch films which keep tea fresh and full of flavour but the options are limited at the moment and it will take time to find solutions for our whole range.

We are very pleased to say that our string & tag bags and paper sachets have always been plastic free and home compostable. Or they can be added to your green waste for collection. The cardboard packets can be composted or recycled. The cellophane wrapper cannot be recycled or composted but our packers are working hard to find a suitable plant-based film which will work well on their machinery.

Our loose leaf teas are currently packed in plastic foil bags which keep the tea as fresh as possible. We will phase these out when we find a suitable alternative. On a day to day basis we think drinking loose tea in a teapot and disposing of the leaves into a compost bin or for green waste collection is one of the most sustainable ways to drink tea.

The good news is that we have just had our new leaf tea bag packaging certified ‘plastic free’ and we will shortly be launching this product. The leaf tea bag itself is made from biodegradable corn starch PLA, then packed in a plant based Natureflex bag, also biodegradable and then in a cardboard packet which is recyclable. This new biodegradable packaging still needs to be disposed of in a sustainable way which really means it needs to be collected as green waste by your local authority to be industrially composted.

We are a small company doing the best we can to source the most sustainable packaging available. We are constantly looking for new solutions to fulfil our aim of maximising taste whilst minimising waste.  At bellevue tea we feel that as part of the worldwide community we all have a responsibility to protect our planet and its resources.

 So, thank you for taking the time to ask us your question.