A hot cup of tea sounds like a soothing and comforting drink, but many of us are unaware of the materials that most tea bags are made of. Your hot cuppa sounds a lot less appealing when you know that many tea bags contain plastic, polypropylene to be exact. It is added to the paper tea bag to help heat seal them during manufacture so they don’t come open in the box, or in your cup. This means that tea bags are not biodegradable, so you cannot throw them in your compost.
Read MorePeople have been chewing on substances made from plants, grasses, and resins for a long time. The Ancient Greeks chewed mastic gum, made from the resin of the mastic tree. The Chinese used ginseng plant roots and the Mayans and Aztecs used chicle, a natural tree gum, as a base for making a gum-like substance. But modern-day chewing gum was mainly commercialized in the United States where the American Indians chewed resin made from the sap of spruce trees.
Read MoreFaux leather (also pleather or vegan leather) is often used as an alternative to genuine leather, because of animal welfare issues. But is it also better for the environment? Some people might argue that animal leather is natural and thus more environmentally friendly. But the animal´s skin needs to be treated in a chemical process called tanning to make leather.
Read MoreMuch of what we consider as trash and throw away in the bin can actually be recycled. Recycling is better for the environment by sending less waste to landfills and by providing materials for new products. Unfortunately, recycling rates are not as high as could be. In Europe recycling rates differ much between countries.
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