Sustainable September 2016 - Day Twelve

Welcome back!!! 

How are you liking this blog this month? How is sustainable September going for you so far? 

Today I left Canberra and my good friend who has been hosting me. 

 

I have been so spoilt. I am sad to go and yet so pleased to have seen our nations capital and had a chance to see my good friend. 

So where to next? 

Let's stay with small useful ideas for now 

Sustainable September: buy/use loose leaf tea instead of tea bags. 

Many who know me know that I have a rather large love of tea. I have about 40 different varieties in both loose leaf and tea bags. What I didn't know when I was purchasing the bags originally was that many tea bags contain plastic. That's right. I said plastic! Crazy huh? 

So if we want to reduce the amount of waste we are putting into the environment, why not go for the one without extra packaging and that will complexly biodegrade in the garden. If we use loose leaf teas we can compost or throw the old leaves straight in the garden, meaning it is given back to the environment to use and breakdown. Instead of going into landfill where it might not break down for years. 

There was a report done 6 years ago about plastic in Teabags in the UK. Many tea companies have actually started addressing the plastic component, which was what they used to seal the bags up, because of concerns from their customers. If you wish to see an article about it check 

here.

Mind you there is an additional environmental concern about the food miles your tea has to travel to get to you. So if you can get the local tea or one from the closest country to you that reduces the food miles. There is only one company in Australia I have found which grows their own tea here and sells on the commercial market. Most other tea is imported from India, China and other such places. 

Kindness idea: buy a box of tea for a homeless shelter. 

This is pretty self explanatory. Tea can be an added expense to those providing services to the homeless. 

Alternatively you could buy one for a local charity or church. Often churches and charities will have a system where their staff and visitors pay a couple of cents/ dollars for morning tea and those coins go to a special charity. Even if they don't donate extra money you could be supporting groups of people who want to help others. Which is pretty awesome. 

Front Lines: there are small communities around the world that are using Sustainable practices to provide safe and welcome areas for people of all varieties to come together and drink tea. 

Check out this one from the UK: 

I love this one. 

Hope this finds you all well. 

Love Daena xx

Ps. This didn't post on the day of the actual sustainable September because I had issues being on and off airplanes. When I thought I had actually finished and posted it, It didn't work. But I have back dated it to the time it should have worked. X