A giant mug filled with plastic arrived at Barry’s Tea Headquarters in Cork this Tuesday afternoon in an effort to get the company to use less plastic in the production of their tea bags.

Campaigners from Uplift today delivered a 13,000 signature petition to the headquarters today after the company have repeatedly not met their promises to remove plastic from all of their tea bags since they started campaigning on the issue over two years ago.

Alongside the petition today, campaigners brought a giant mug of Barry’s Tea - made out of recycled cardboard and filled with plastic from their recycling bins - to highlight the plastic in every mug of tea.

Uplift is a people-powered community of over 340,000+ people in Ireland. Each day hundreds of people take small actions together, such as signing petitions or contacting their TDs, to help build a more equal, sustainable and just Ireland.

According to Uplift, tea bags produced by Barry’s are sealed with a petroleum-based plastic called polypropylene and don’t decompose.

Uplift have been campaigning on this issue for several years after one of their members started a petition highlighting the issue, and under pressure from members, Barry’s promised to remove plastic in 2018.

However, according to Uplift they have "been dragging their heels in following through on their promise."

"In August of this year after Uplift launched a live counter - showing that 97 Barry’s tea bags are consumed per second in Ireland, Barry’s Tea spoke to the Independent newspaper claiming the tea firm were to ‘turn over new leaf on plastic use’," a spokesperson said.

Michelle Byrne and Alex Barton of Uplift

"Unfortunately, they have not removed the plastic from all of their tea bags by the end of this year as they promised."

The live counter continued to track every plastic lined teabag Barry’s Tea bag that is drunk every day since Barry’s promise in 2018 to show the damage this is causing.

Today the counter reads 7,910,000,000 plus. This amounts to nearly 8 billion Barry’s tea bags with plastic in them that have been used in Ireland alone and will be lying in compost heaps unable to break down.

“The government is currently discussing changes to the proposed Climate Action Bill that we want to see contain action on single use plastics - we want Barry’s to take action on single use plastic tea bags too," said Michelle Byrne, an Uplift campaigner.

"More people are beginning to live more sustainable lifestyles and these tea bags cannot be composted and ultimately, will contribute to more plastic ending up in our seas and rivers - harming our beautiful country.

"The issue really highlights that the consumer can only do so much when it comes to reducing plastic in their day to day lives, the real decision makers on how much plastic we use are the companies and the policies that allow them to do it.”

A Barry's Tea spokesperson told Cork Beo: "Many of the claims made by the uplift press release are inaccurate. Very recently we proactively engaged with Uplift to update them on our company’s progress via email, which they confirmed receipt of. Therefore, in addition to the inaccuracies, it’s disappointing that they have chosen to ignore the significant progress we’ve made."

They added: "We know how important sustainable living is to our tea fans, it’s important to us too. Because of this, we started on our journey some time ago.

  • Our tea boxes are 100% recyclable and printed using vegetable-based inks.

  • Our products are Rainforest Alliance Certified™ - meaning our tea is grown and harvested on farms and estates that promote environmental, social and economic sustainability.

"More recently, we’ve been working to switch our production to biodegradable tea bags that can be disposed of in your brown bin for composting. We have made significant investment in the necessary design and technology to make this happen. In spite of Covid challenges, we’re succeeding.

  • In October 2020, 70% of all Barry’s Tea teabags were biodegradable.

  • Now 100% of all the teabags produced within our 80’s and 160’s box range, as well as our new Infusions range, are 100% biodegradable.

  • Within 6 months, 100% of our teabags produced will be fully biodegradable.

"For an independent, family-owned, Irish business - this is a huge milestone. We credit our team’s passion and ambition in making these positive changes and we look forward to completing the journey early next year.

"We trust that anyone interested in our sustainable practice will choose to understand the facts. Keep an eye on this page where we will update progress, as it happens at www.barrystea.ie Sustainable Updates."