good for you. soon they'll be making toilet paper out of plastic.

Thanks for pointing this out. I have just informed them I will no longer purchase Lipton products until they fix that.
Complain here:
http://www.liptont.com/contact_us/contact_us.asp

"Kind regards,Your friends at Lipton"

With friends like this, . . . . .

I just cant believe that they think ANYBODY is going to empty, clean and recycle these things. Im not even mad, just sad.

thanks daddymem. I put a complaint there telling them I won't be buying any more lipton products until those things disappear off the shelves. I will also be informing my family and friends and complain to the store I usually buy my tea. I had to pick quite a few of those bags out of my last compost :s

Their complaint form is a complete disaster.No allowance is made for people outside the U.S. and the parser is much too restrictive.

Here is my canned response. Oh well, if enough wheels squeak, perhaps they'll bring some oil.

Hello ,

Thank you for writing!

We are very sorry to learn that you had this experience. Our company is dedicated to marketing products of only the highest quality and safety. Providing superior products at competitive prices is our commitment to you. We are concerned when we hear of a problem involving one of our products and will share your comments with the appropriate staff.

Thank you for providing your complete address so we can send you a complimentary coupon.

Thanks for your interest!
Your friends at Lipton

Plastic? That's terrible. And they can't even get their shapes right. Its a tetrahedron, not a pyramid. A pyramid has a square base.

"The translucent Tetrahedral teabag" has a nice ring to it. That is dismaying news though. The ultimate in tasty and compost friendly tea in my opinion is made from loose leaves strained using a Danish tea strainer made of an enamel-coated 3" metal ring with an unbleached cotton 'sock' that holds enough leaves to make about a pot's worth of tea. It cost $3, and we've used ours about fifty times now without it showing any wear and tear.

Good loose tea leaves are getting harder to find in the stores but what a difference. And no tea bag, let alone staple or paper tag, in the compost pile.

I'm going to write Lipton and suggest they supply both the loose leaves and the strainer, and why.

a Gossamer Tetrahedral

there ya go, 50 cents for that please!

The complaint form has rejected my message 4 times for no apparent reason. This is ridiculous.

Don't use any of a number of special charecters including quotes or apostrophes. User friendly, eh?

tj

"I just cant believe that they think ANYBODY is going to empty, clean and recycle these things"

They probably don't.

but they don't care.

Just got a reply to my email:

"Unfortunately the new Lipton Pyramid bags are not made from a biodegradable material and are thus not suitable for putting onto a compost heap. Whilst the tea inside the bag will degrade under appropriate conditions, the tea bag skeleton will be left behind. It is recommended that the tea bags be treated as a packaging material and disposed of accordingly. All materials used by Unilever are manufactured according to current stringent legislation for materials in direct contact with food.

The environment is important to Unilever, and we are looking at alternative materials which may be more suitable for use on home compost heaps. However some packaging issues have been addressed with this new tea bag. The new format is helping us to reduce the amount of packaging used. Our Lipton pyramid bags contain 40% less tea bag material than the traditional double chamber tea bag.

We hope this information helps!
Your friends at Lipton

Thank you for providing your complete address so we can send you a complimentary coupon.

Thanks for your interest!
Your friends at Lipton

LMAO! They will probably send you a coupon for the new plastic tea bags!

Got a piece of mail today from Unilever. Basically a letter version of the email sent. Also a coupon "Good for one free Lipton Green, Herbal, Flavored Black or Pyramid Tea Bags" At least I can use it on a bagged tea... It also came with a brochure with $9 in coupons for other Unilever products. Great, how about addressing the problem? Use corn based plastics that biodegrade if you can't figure out how to make tetrahedrons out of something other than plastic, or something!

40% less tea bag material

They dont get it at ALL, its not 40% less material, because it goes away and becomes 0. Its infinitely MORE permament plastic cuz you cant divide by 0.

They need a math major in the marketing department. :)

I want my coupons also!

Course, I should be happy they dont send a hitman over to my house for starting this whole thing.

Funny thing is, I just went to the Lipton site to see their exact description of the bags. They don't describe them as plastic anymore; they are "gossamer". That sounds like silk, a biodegradable material, to me...

I'm new to this whole composting thing. Just started my first bin yesterday. About 50% carbon, 50% nitrogen, and I used some starter stuff. Hope it works (and that it doesn't get too smelly; my husband will get annoyed if it does....) :)

They never admitted on the website that they're plastic. Its always said "gossamer", they only fessed up when I asked.

:)
still fuming here....

I had been taking home bucketsful of used teabags and coffee bags from work a few years ago, but recently have been finding the bags completely whole in my compost :-( so I stopped.

I use leaf tea with a deepish stainless steel strainer. I just put the strainer into the mug, put in the tealeaves and wait 3 or 4 minutes. You can then tip the leaves directly into your compost bucket. The tea tastes much nicer too. Sometimes people give me teabags, and so then I tear them open (let them get cold first!) and tip out the leaves. It's a pain but much better than the empty bags in the compost.

Ashita

I've just emailed my complaint to Unilever:
___________
I have a complaint to make about your Lipton pyramid tea bags.

The words ÂSustainable development are displayed prominently on your main webpage. There are many good things listed on that section of your website, but there is one thing which lets you down: plastic tea bags.

I bought your peppermint tea bags yesterday, and expected to be able to put the used tea bags onto my compost heap as usual: but I saw with real horror that your bags, the string and the label on each bag are all made of plastic. When most tea bags are made of paper, and can easily be made of paper, this is inexcusable. You will know all of the arguments regarding sustainability and harm to sea creatures which surround plastic: plastic takes up to 1000 years to degrade (paper takes 2 to 5 months to biodegrade), so once that plastic has degraded, its microscopic plastic particles are still in the environment; plastic bags are being ingested by sea creatures such as turtles who die as a consequence; oestrogenic compounds are leached from PET water bottles, especially when they are warmed up  I dread to think what happens when boiling water is poured onto a plastic PET tea bag.

I see, from a quick web search, that I am not alone in my shock at finding out that you use plastic tea bags. One blog poster even posted your reply to her query:

ÂThe translucent Pyramid tea bag is made of PET, the same food grade material clear water and juice bottles are made of. As with any plastic, it would not be considered biodegradable. PET is completely safe and is 100% recyclable within the plastics waste stream. Hope this information is helpful. Kind regards, Your friends at LiptonÂ

The fact that you say it is 100% recyclable within the plastics waste stream is not the reassuring fact that you seem to think it is. ItÂs PR wool-pulling. Another example of your amazing PR machine would be your use of the term Âgossamer when referring to plastic tea bags. Another example: the box displays the Ârecycle now icon, and yet doesnÂt list the plastic anywhere. So consumers donÂt know that they are buying plastic until they open the box.

I wonÂt be buying your products again. I will be warning my friends about your tea bags. I will post this on the web so others are also aware and donÂt make the same mistake I did.

Please, please, stop making your tea bags out of plastic.