Tea Shop's Zero Plastic Project

Recycling is not enough. That is why since 2019 we have started the 0 PLASTIC (Zero Plastic) Project that aims to reduce the consumption of plastic in the company. Since 2020, many of our products and store materials have been undergoing changes, in order to eliminate this polluting material and replace it by an alternative material that respects the environment. The objective of this project is to eliminate almost 18 tons of plastic. 

In 2020, plastic straws were replaced by paper straws. These new paper straws are biodegradable and recyclable, and thus can be recycled in any paper container. In Spain, 13 million plastic straws are currently being consumed every day. They take about 500 years to degrade, whereas paper straws take 1 year to degrade. In Tea Shop we consume 15,600 units of straws per year. With this single change, we have reduced plastic use by 11.25 kg. 

We have also planned to change the current plastic Take Away cups to PLA cups. One of the main advantages of PLA is its biodegradability, and its sustainable production process, making it an environmentally friendly plastic choice. PLA does not produce toxic emissions. It is a material derived from natural and renewable raw materials such as corn (and not fossil fuels), a very positive option since oil is a finite resource. Thanks to this change in the material of our cups, we will reduce plastic by 4 kg per year. 

On the other hand, our tea suppliers will send us all bulk tea in Kraft paper bags. Previously, part of this merchandise was shipped in plastic bags. With this change, we will be able to eliminate up to 495 kg of plastic per year. 

At the end of 2020, we also replaced our Tea Shop tea bags (the bags that hold the tea purchased by customers), by Kraft paper bags. The former bags were made from up of 3 different materials, in three layers: a paper layer, a plastic layer, and an aluminum layer. With this change, our bags will be 100% biodegradable. These new bags have 2 different layers to preserve tea in optimum quality and are made of one layer of PLA and one layer of kraft paper. With this substantial change, we eliminate 5,200kg of plastic annually. 

This year, we will go on reducing the amount of plastic from our products and store materials. We will make changes to the packaging of our Organic Collection in order to eliminate, only in this range, up to 516 kg of plastic per year. We will also work on replacing the plastic in the packaging of the rest of our products, and with these changes we will eliminate 976 kg of plastic per year. 

This year we are planning to eliminate the plastic from product packaging, which will reduce plastic use by 2kg per year. We will also replace plastic labels included on some products by paper labels. In Tea Shop we use 300,000 plastic labels per year. With this change, we will eliminate 30kg of plastic.

Regarding material used in stores, we will progressively eliminate plastic from store materials, from both a logistics perspective and with regard to promotion materials exposed to the customer. We will eliminate plastic from promotional displays, bubble wrap, foam paper, among others. These changes in store consumables will allow us to eliminate 445 kg of plastic per year. Other generic store materials, used in the day-to-day store operations, will also be gradually eliminated or replaced by eco friendly materials. With these changes, we will reduce plastic use by 312kg. 

A final word on our tea sample bags. How many times, when making a purchase, have we been given a sample of a tea that we were interested in, and wanted to taste? Well, these sample bags will also be replaced by others that are not made of plastic. The current sample bags represent 211 kg of plastic per year, which we will eliminate and swap for eco-friendly alternatives. 

With these changes, at the end of 2020 we achieved our goal of eliminating more than 8 tons of plastic from our products. 

In January 2022, we plan to make our products 100% free from plastic, which amounts to a total of 15 tons of plastic eliminated in Tea Shop. 

Regarding the Tea Shop logistics, in 2020 we reduced plastic use by 70kg by eliminating and replacing this material by environmentally friendly alternatives. In 2021, we plan to swap plastic seals for paper seals, which will mean a reduction of 600kg of plastic per year. 

A new policy that we are already applying in all our Tea Shop stores is the digitization of purchase tickets. All our clients are offered the option to receive their sales ticket by email, although they can also request the physical ticket. Thanks to digitization at the point of sale, we will be able to eliminate up to 800kg of paper that we use annually on printed tickets. 

We have also applied the Plastic 0 Project in our Central Offices. In 2021 we will reduce plastic use by up to 100kg in office supplies, which will be replaced by ecological materials that do not have an impact on the environment. 

On the other hand, we have also committed ourselves to reducing and almost eliminating paper consumption in our offices by digitizing all types of prints to the maximum. Annually at Tea Shop we consume 75 packs of sheets in our offices, which represent 37,500 sheets. Up to 10,000 sheets can be produced from one tree. With this reduction of paper consumption, we aim to save almost 4 trees per year. 

Finally, the Marketing department is working on digitization in points of sale. Many shop windows of Tea Shop stores already have digital signage advertising screens, delivering such contents as ongoing campaigns, news and current promotions. They also have digital screens inside the store, where you can check the varieties that are currently available in Tea Shop, as well as those varieties that can be bought through Long Tail. 

The objective of digitization is to reduce the use of posters in shop windows, as they are made of plastic. Since 2020, we have started working with cardboard signs for stores where digitization is not yet available. With this great change in digitization and  of material replacement in points of sale, we are going to eliminate up to 238kg of plastic per year. 

On the other hand, we also plan to reduce the use of printed vinyls in our shop windows and inside the store by replacing them with banners made of paper or alternative materials. With this change, in the coming months we will reduce plastic use by up to 288kg per year. With all these changes, which we started implementing in 2020 in stores, 72% of plastic has already been eliminated in the marketing department, which corresponds to 811kg of plastic per year that we eliminate from our shop windows and stores. 

We will gradually eliminate the remaining 28% during the year 2021 by developing alternatives and replacing plastic by materials that do not have an environmental impact.