In article ,
"michael adams" writes:
|
| Indeed. But the point I was making was they were specifically
| designed so as to survive almost indefinitely in the warm moist
| environment of the "average" compost heap. Which nevertheless,
| eventually produces satisfactory results, from most other types
| of albeit soft material. Which if the heap was dry and cool, it
| wouldn't. They were designed so as not to compost under "average"
| conditions, where the heap isn't regularly turned, and never achieves
| sufficient mass so as to achieve optimum temperatures at the centre.
| Unlike say, your own.
|
| You have a most bizarre idea of how to make tea!
|
| They are designed not to break down in a few hours of being fully
| saturated at temperatures from 100 Celcius down to 0.
|
| No more likely, the probabilty is that they're unlikely to break
| down within say six months immersion in liquid. I very much
| doubt if it's economic or even desirable to manufacture
| tea bags which can be guarenteed to break down within a certain
| period.

Read what you said again. You claimed that they were DESIGNED not
to break down in the environment of a compost heap. I pointed out
that was false. You are correct that they are unlikely to break
down in 6 months if kept saturated.

| Nevertheless if the cellulose\lignin fibres in teabag paper are so treated
| so as to be able to resist normal disintegration and\or tainting of the tea,
| I can see no reason why such treatment shouldn't render them relatively
| impervious to both bacterial and fungal in addition.

Elm, oak and other woods will last for a millennium if saturated,
as Ely cathedral shows. They will break down in a year or two
if merely damp (and oxygenated).


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
"michael adams" writes:
|
| And given that the environmental conditions a teabag could expect
| to encounter in the average compost heap are not dissimilar to the
| envirnment a teabag is designed to withstand under normal
| conditions in a teacup, I stand by that claim.

No, they aren't, as I have repeatedly pointed out. Do please
learn something about biological processes before posting more
nonsense.

| I think you'll find that many tea bags dry out at some stage
| between being removed from the cup and ending up on the compost
| heap. Some people even dry them out, and use them again I believe.

Don't be ridiculous. None of that is likely to cause the
relevant fungi and bacteria to start breaking them down and,
in any case, exponential growth starts off negligibly slowly.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Tea bags in general...am amazed that theland of tea lovers would even think
of using tea bags in the first place....whatever happened to the good old
loose tea in the teapot....there will always be an England as long as the
teapot survives.......H

"Harold Walker" wrote in message
...
Tea bags in general...am amazed that theland of tea lovers would even
think
of using tea bags in the first place....whatever happened to the good old
loose tea in the teapot....there will always be an England as long as the
teapot survives.......H



with the milk delivered by the milkman, measured out from his churn into a
blue and white ringed jug ;-)) which then had a muslin cloth with little
weighted beads, put over it and the jug stood on a marble slab in the cold
pantry.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be ;-)

Mike
Who can still remember drawing water from the village well in Oxfordshire

In article ,
"Mike" writes:
|
| Who can still remember drawing water from the village well
| in Oxfordshire

Well? You had a well? I can remember it being poured by hand
into a tank on an ox-cart (from a spring), delivered using the
cart, and then poured by hand into the house's tank. It then
had to be boiled before use.

That wasn't in Oxfordshire, of course :-)


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
"Harold Walker" writes:
|
| Tea bags in general...am amazed that theland of tea lovers would even think
| of using tea bags in the first place....whatever happened to the good old
| loose tea in the teapot....there will always be an England as long as the
| teapot survives.......H

That is what I do twice daily.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
martin writes:
|
| They are designed not to break down in a few hours of being fully
| saturated at temperatures from 100 Celcius down to 0. That is
| nothing like the conditions of any normal heap - as we know full
| well, saturated heaps do not compost well. They are NOT designed
| to be resistant to bacterial and fungal attack when damp.
|
| What about the effect of the tannin from the tea?

That is another reason that they don't break down in the teapot,
even when you go away on holiday leaving a pot of cold tea to
fester quietly to itself. The tannin is a fairly effective
bacteriostat, and there are very few soluble carbohydrates in tea.
While the bag is saturated with high-tannin water, it will last
for a very long time (as clothing does in peat bogs).

In a compost heap, the tannin will leach from the surface (i.e.
the bag), and there will be tannin-resistant bacteria, anyway.
But the most important differences will be the extra oxygenation
because it is no longer saturated, and the longer timescale,
allowing the bacteria time to grow.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article , Nick Maclaren
writes

In article ,
"michael adams" writes:
|
| And given that the environmental conditions a teabag could expect
| to encounter in the average compost heap are not dissimilar to the
| envirnment a teabag is designed to withstand under normal
| conditions in a teacup, I stand by that claim.

No, they aren't, as I have repeatedly pointed out. Do please
learn something about biological processes before posting more
nonsense.

| I think you'll find that many tea bags dry out at some stage
| between being removed from the cup and ending up on the compost
| heap. Some people even dry them out, and use them again I believe.

Don't be ridiculous. None of that is likely to cause the
relevant fungi and bacteria to start breaking them down and,
in any case, exponential growth starts off negligibly slowly.

Nick - you're nit-picking! ;-)

Michael was loose in his assertion, but I for one didn't take him to
mean literally that tea-bag designers put down as their no 1 requirement
that the bags should not decompose in a compost heap. I could easily
have made a similar statement about cork - but all I would have meant is
that the same attributes which make cork a good option for stoppering a
wine bottle make wine corks long-lasting in a compost heap.

--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

In article , Harold Walker
writes
Tea bags in general...am amazed that theland of tea lovers would even think
of using tea bags in the first place....whatever happened to the good old
loose tea in the teapot....there will always be an England as long as the
teapot survives.......H

You May well ask! I can buy Lapsang loose in the city, but not in my
local town.

But criticism of tea bags I think is often based more on the quality of
the tea used in the bags rather than the process of bagging it. And tea
bags mean you no longer have to mess around with tea strainers, and you
can empty the tea pot on to your houseplants without having to catch
stray tea leaves.


--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

Nick Maclaren....a true to the mould English man....H



"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
...

In article ,
"Harold Walker" writes:
|
| Tea bags in general...am amazed that theland of tea lovers would even
think
| of using tea bags in the first place....whatever happened to the good
old
| loose tea in the teapot....there will always be an England as long as
the
| teapot survives.......H

That is what I do twice daily.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

anita kean wrote:
[...]
I don't think all teabags are made from the same material.
About three years ago I purchased some Chinese oolong tea in
teabags
and those teabags are still undecomposed in my compost/soil.
The others, e.g. the ones I have used since, are decomposed and
gone.

I don't think I'd use that brand again: it sounds as though they may
be stuck together with something unknown. The fibres themselves may
even not be cellulose, but I find that unlikely. Try burning one and
see what it smells like, and if the colour of the smoke is
unexpected.

--
Mike.

Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
"Harold Walker" writes:
|
| Tea bags in general...am amazed that theland of tea lovers would even think
| of using tea bags in the first place....whatever happened to the good old
| loose tea in the teapot....there will always be an England as long as the
| teapot survives.......H

That is what I do twice daily.

What - you survive as a teapot?

--
Chris Green

Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
"Mike" writes:

Who can still remember drawing water from the village well
in Oxfordshire

Well? You had a well? I can remember it being poured by hand
into a tank on an ox-cart (from a spring), delivered using the
cart, and then poured by hand into the house's tank. It then
had to be boiled before use.

That wasn't in Oxfordshire, of course :-)

Ox-cart! You had an _ox-cart_? We had it delivered in cans on the
back of donkey (and, I may say, it never caused the slightest
tummy-bug). That wasn't in Oxfordshire, either.

--
Mike.

Sue Begg wrote:
In message
ws.net,
Oxymel of Squill writes
there's an EU regulation which prohibits tea bags being composted
by
local authorities because they're classed as animal products.

actually behind the expected EU silliness is the suggestion that
if
tea bags have been in the cup with milk then any dairy disease
might
be transferred to the compost. But if you take out the bag before
adding the milk there shouldn't be a problem

Can we watch while they test them all - one by one of course :-))
It could provide a lovely job description for someone

So you don't mind if we get another epidemic of animal disease for
lack of simple precautions? If you _do_ mind, perhaps you could draw
up a more practical set of regulations. Most of the time, it won't
hurt you a bit if the chefs chop vegetables on the meat choppping
board: but I doubt if you'd change that rule.

--
Mike.

In article ,
"Mike Lyle" writes:
|
| Ox-cart! You had an _ox-cart_? We had it delivered in cans on the
| back of donkey (and, I may say, it never caused the slightest
| tummy-bug). That wasn't in Oxfordshire, either.

It's hard to deliver it by a dead donkey, and sleeping sickness
had only just been brought under control.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.