Green Packaging

We teamed up with a group of graduate students studying Industrial Ecology at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources Center for Sustainable Systems to evaluate the environmental impact of our previous packaging and look at greener alternatives. Our previous packaging involved a combination of tin-plated steel canisters (an old-standby in the tea industry) and glassine-lined paper bags. As it turned out, the steel tins we used were no friend of the environment, but our paper bags were actually pretty good. In response to this news, we replaced our steel tin with a recyclable, parchment-lined paperboard canister. It’ll keep your tea safe and sound while generating less than one-fifth of the carbon emissions of the traditional tea tin (in addition to less air and water pollution)!

As we went through the process of investigating greener packaging options, we were surprised, frustrated and saddened by the limited availability of eco-friendly packaging that met the particular needs of our product. While our paperboard canisters are a major step in the right direction, our search for the greenest possible packaging is not over.