Are you sure the bags themselves are not synthetic? Many are these days. If not, unless dug into the soil, won't the bags, string and tags look like litter strew about the garden?

tj

I never said they were or were not synthetic because I don't know one way or another. I'm not concerned what the strings and tags look like as long as the tea bags are doing justice. As we both know the crap (stings and tags) will decompose and be gone soon enough. I am looking how to use them but thank you for your response.

Don't worry about 'if used properly'. You can't use them any other way and it matters not a jot what your soil needs. Tea bags are completely innocuous and can be used anywhere. Unless the bags are synthetic (anathema) you can put them on the compost heap, bury them or just throw them on the soil if you can stand the messy look. I add mine to the compost along with all other kitchen detritus. There is no 'correct' dosage or method. Personally I buy bags with no strings or tags but you'll just have to use what you have. Only fancy tea bags have tags here. Everyday tea is just in a paper sachet.

Apart from point about whether the bags are synthetic, the string and tags might be annoying. Best guess for advice? Don't think too much about whether they will help our soil, just dig a hole someplace that isn't too sensitive (i.e. where whatever you're planting isn't critical and you won't need/want to turn the soil in near future) and bury them. They'll eventually break down in soil, if they take longer to break down the strings, they won't bother you. (You can use this method - trench composting - for other compostable materials, only difference here is I'm suggesting in an underused spot to avoid unsightly stuff with the strings and tags.)

Yes, bury them or cover them with mulch or put them into a compost pile. I compost all of mine and never see the bags, strings or tags again. Except for the occasional plastic bag. But you can tell those right away.

Thank you all for your suggestions after doing further research I think some of the bags are synthetic, thank you for asking me about them. Because of this I think I will cut the bags and just use the tea. It's going to take some time but I don't want even small traces of plastic in the soil.

Almost all commercial tea bags have a synthetic component in them; although a few specialty brands use 100% compostable teabags that is the exception, not the rule. The paper in the teabag will decompose but the synthetic mesh will not, and will eventually form into a ball of linty gunk. You could. at that point, pick them out, but it's not very practical to do that if there are a lot of them.

For this very reason I've stopped using bagged tea and am going to all loose leaf tea in my household.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/02/teabags-biodegradeable

Most UK teabags not fully biodegradeable, research reveals

British tea drinkers consume millions of teabags every day yet the vast majority are only 70-80% biodegradable, consumer body warns

UK consumers get through millions of teabags every day to make their favourite drink yet the vast majority are not fully biodegradable, a consumer organisation warns today.

A report published today by Which? Gardening reveals that teabags produced by top tea manufacturers such as Tetley, PG Tips, Twinnings, Clipper and Typhoo are only between 70-80% biodegradable. As a result, gardeners are finding the net part of teabags - caused by the inclusion of heat-resistant polypropylene - left on their compost heaps.

(full article at link)

Well that is disappointing to read. My current box of 20 dozen PG tips bags says 'compost at home' on it. I've never noticed any residues and have always composted them. Whatever they break down into is invisible to my naked eye. I got some Teapigs as a gift once and didn't like the fact that they were in a nylon sachet. Seems they've changed that.

Good grief. I have not seen residue either from the paper-like ones that I've composted. Keep in mind that the entire bag can't weigh more than a gram (if that) and 20% of that is negligible. As an env. chemist, polypropylene is harmless, and after all you soaked it in your drink so it can't be THAT bad. :-D I understand not wanting plastic in your soil, and I avoid it myself. But I'm not going to start cutting my tea bags open and emptying them over this. The mesh, at least, will disintegrate eventually, as opposed to plastic films and such that hang around a long time.

I'm not 100% sure soaking these things in hot water which you then drink is such a great idea, either, but that's neither here nor there.

I've been noticing a lot of activity lately in Great Britain around reducing plastic waste in the environment, a lot of it spurred by the recent Blue Planet II broadcast that included a harsh look at plastic's impact in the marine environment. Things like the Queen and the Church of England coming out with messages against plastic waste. So it's not surprising that the push against non-biodegradable tea bags is making more headway there. A lot of US consumers aren't aware of the issue. Well, that'll change if we keep pushing.

I think part of the awareness is probably because the furthest any of us live from the coast is 70 miles. And most of us live much closer than that. So when people see plastic in the oceans on their TV screens it has a big impact. Such a lot of rubbish is carried down streams and rivers and ends up in the sea that we also see it first hand on our beaches.

A lot of people don't really understand how watersheds work and that everything runs downstream.