evidence: Now, this isn’t true of all brands of tea bags. Many popular brands in the UK (like PG Tips and Yorkshire) are working on eliminating the plastic and should have plastic completely out of their tea bags soon. This can’t come soon enough, since a recent study showed that one plastic tea bag can shed one billion microplastic particles into your drink (1). But while some brands are making a change, not all companies are as transparent. [...] By accidentally incorrectly putting tea bags that do contain plastic in the compost you are adding small amounts of plastic to the compost, which will introduce these chemicals back into the food chain as plants absorb them from the soil as they grow. Instead, these bags should be put in the trash. Or, if you want to go above and beyond, you can open the tea bag, but the tea leaves in the compost, and just place the, now empty, bag in the trash.