All the major UK teabag manufacturers commit to ditching plastics from their teabags

Back in the summer of 2017, I set up a petition on the 38 Degrees 'Campaign by You' pages. I had a lucky break when the Sunday Times asked me for an interview and ran a story about it. This was followed by interviews on BBC Radio Wales, ITV Wales, the Daily Post and Quartz Magazine. The petition became much bigger than I had ever imagined and finally gained almost 233,000 signatures. This tipped the scales and persuaded the UK's largest teabag manufacturer, PG Tips (owned by Unilever) to make a statement that they would be removing plastics from their teabags.

Following this success, I set up a second campaign to target the other major UK teabag manufacturers - Taylors (Yorkshire Tea), Twinings, Tetley and Typhoo, pressing them to make a positive difference to the environment by removing plastics from their teabags.

This petition received less publicity but, even so, the campaign quickly reached 177,000 signatures, resulting in all of the major UK manufacturers agreeing to remove plastics from their teabags.

I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has signed my petitions and to 38 Degrees for their advice and support at key points.

Both campaigns have been amazingly successful with a final total of over 400,000 signatures and have shown that the public wants to see biodegradable teabags that don't contain plastics and don't contribute to the planet's massive plastics problem.

Having suceeded in their aims, both campaigns have now closed.