Monday, December 1, 2008

Herbal Infusion

When bwo visited me at squint central over the weekend (yeah, I know) she bought some fancy tea from the health store next door. Yesterday morning I was feeling a tad under the weather, so I tried a cup of raspberry and echinacea. This morning, I particularly needed a blackcurrant, ginseng and vanilla infusion. While sipping my tea, I got to thinking. Look at this box of teas (or herbal infusions to be precise).

Have you ever seen more packaging? Between you and your tea leaves (I use the words tea leaves here in a representational sense only), there is the lining of the tea bag itself, the paper outer wrapping of the tea bag, the plastic wrapping around the group of five tea bags of each flavor, then the brightly colored box they all come in and finally the plastic wrap around the box (Miriam must have thrown this away yesterday when she cleaned my office. She has no interest in the finer points of blogging). That makes five layers to protect you (or your herbal infusion) from the harsh elements.

It's little wonder that landfills are overflowing. Not to mention that opening those little, five bag plastic packages requires a Swiss Army knife. Its just not all that relaxing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I 100% agree with you on this! Packaging is getting out of control. In our city (Toronto) we now have to pay for our garbage (the smaller the bin, the cheaper it is) and I think it has really allowed my wife and I to rethink our purchases.

Have you tried loose leaf teas? Often I just throw a handful in a cup, strain it and toss the used tea in our compost bin!

blackpetero said...

Its true that making folks pay for their garbage is the best way to ensure we are more mndful of packaging. We, in the blackfamilyo homestead are particularly bad with packaging. We throw out a huge amount of stuff. Luckily here in Raanana they collect the garbage every 2 days or so. When we lived in Sunnyvale, CA they were so much stricter. You had to used the recycling bins provided or you were fined. And man, if you left bags of garbage outside your allotted bin, you received a stern note telling you not to do it again or else.