Earth Day this year is on the 22nd of April, its aim to spread awareness and encourage support for environmental protection. Here at Waterloo Tea, we feel passionate about the environment and want to do all we can to ensure that we reduce as many negative impacts as a business as possible.

Being a tea business, there are some unavoidable pitfalls that we encounter, particularly  the importation of tea from around the world. However, despite this there are things we can and must do to offset/reduce these. 

Loose Leaf Tea

In using loose-leaf tea, we encourage customers to reduce pollution. The use of tea bags leads to a greater amount of plastic pollution, as many conventional tea bags won't fully decompose. In offering loose-leaf tea, we are able to give our customers a way to enjoy the nation's favourite drink without the risk of further polluting our planet with plastics and unnecessary packaging waste.

Many of our teas can also be re-infused, which not only means more bang for your buck but an ever changing brew from the same leaves. Instead of using 5 tea bags you can use the same 5g of Iron Goddess of Mercy Oolong tea to get 5 nuanced and varied pots of tea - what more could you want!

Not only is loose leaf better for the environment but it's going to be much more enjoyable!

Teahouses

Our teahouses are focused on the concept of community and shopping locally. We use quality local suppliers ensuring there is a minimal footprint. We are supporters of the Foundational (Circular) economy, and understand the beneifts of supporting smaller sized businesses. 

We use compostable boxes and cups for those that wish to have our food and drink to take away. However, re-using is always a better choice than the impact creating something new has on the planet and so we have now introduced a 50p discount for all drinks to takeaway that are in a re-usable cup. We hope that this helps to encourage our customers to choose to re-use more often. 

Online

All of our teas are available to purchase online and so it's important we are aware of the impact this can have on the environment. We have transitioned to using recyclable boxes and packing materials when posting tea to our customers and wholesale partners.

We also re-use whenever we have an opportunity to. Whether this is re-using packing materials from deliveries we may have had ourselves or re-using bags to help supply our own teahouses with tea.

Future

There is a long way for many organisations to go to ensure we use the tools at our disposal to have as minimal a negative impact on our environment. We hope to continue to make strides to show that there are better ways of doing business.. 

What ideas do you have to help us do more to protect the environment?