Peace

There are two main ways to keep a teabag fresh: wrap the individual bags or wrap the entire box. This is essential if you want to protect the high quality therapeutic organic herbs and essential oils. At Pukka we prefer to wrap each bag in an envelope so that once the box (ours is made with FSC certified cardboard and printed with vegetable-based inks) is open the other teabags remain fresh.

The good news is after four years of research and development, we’ve made a tea envelope that can go in your paper recycling bin. Our brand new FSC® certified paper envelopes still include a very thin coating of plastic that is free from BPA and PVC. It’s so thin that it can be recycled with normal paper. After successful trials with some of our bulkier blends, from 1^st May 2018 we began the transition of all our teas into these recyclable envelopes. We expect all our blends to be in the new envelope by the end of 2018.  They may take a little while to get to your favourite retailer, so look out for the recycling logo on your envelope.

Looking even further ahead we are currently researching ways to source this recyclable barrier from a compostable plant-based source too. We will freely share this technology with other tea companies as soon as we’ve found the solution.

You can recycle our teabags in your food recycling bins/caddies. And you can home compost our teabags too. We are currently applying for an independent certification to give you added peace of mind that our teabags are 100% compostable. We are confident the paper will pass, and we will have the certification shortly.

Managed by the FairWild Foundation, The FairWild standard helps to protect plant species that grow in the wild and the beauty of their natural habitats, whilst respecting deeply-rooted traditions and the livelihoods of the communities that depend on them.

Under the FairWild certification, a collector who may have traditionally dug up an entire plant to harvest its roots is required to leave some of the plant in the ground, to allow it to grow again the following year.

Similarly, collectors who would have harvested an entire area of herbs under previous practices, are incentivised by FairWild to leave some untouched, allowing the remaining plants to mature and naturally regenerate.

To reflect and respect the extra effort and time that FairWild sustainable herb collection requires, individual FairWild collectors are paid a premium price. An additional amount – known as the FairWild premium – is paid by Pukka to the collectors’ cooperative, to be spent on social and environmental projects for the local community.

You can read more about Fair for Life on our blog.

Tea companies have recently come under scrutiny for the use of polypropylene, a plastic used to heat-seal the edges of teabags. Pukka doesn’t use this kind of material. Instead, we use a simple stitch of organic cotton and a unique folding process. This means we don’t need to use polypropylene to hold our teabags together and our teabags are therefore free from plastic. We were the first company to ever use organic strings to hold our teabags together without the need of a metal staple or polypropylene.