Reuse Your Tea Bags!
From
ENN.com, Kelly Vaghenas for Green Prophet reports on 13 surprising green ways
to reuse tea bags.
As
an avid tea drinker, I was intrigued when I stumbled upon a variety of sources
that promoted the eco-friendly use of tea bags, outside the teacup. Arthur W. Pinero, an
Englishman, of course, said, “Where there’s tea, there’s hope.” That’s
definitely true. Brewed tea bags can provide a pick-me-up in ways you’d
least expect. Here are 13 of them. You can use tea…
Got
tired eyes, bruises, or sunburn? Bee stings or mosquito bites? Did your child just get a
shot at the doctor’s but the free lollipop wasn’t consolation enough?
Apply a cool, moist tea bag to these kinds of affected areas on the skin to get
soothing relief and quicker healing.
2. As
a hot compress.
Trying
to get rid of pinkeye, canker sores or fever blisters? Or maybe a plantar
wart smack dab in the middle of the sole of your right foot? Warm, wet
tea bags can draw out the infections.
3. To
clean your carpets.
For
more delicate, Persian or Oriental carpets, sprinkle almost-dry tea leaves on the carpet,
and then sweep them away when dry. Tea leaves on more heavy-duty carpets
can be vacuumed.
4. To
take a flavored bath.
Treat
your skin as you would your taste buds, in the bathtub. Give your bath
salts a run for their money by running the bath water over several used tea
bags. You’ll have yourself an aromatic, skin-softening soak in no time.
5. To
feed your garden.
Cultivate
your healthy plants and bring your dying ones back to life by breaking open a
soaked tea bag and disseminating the contents over the soil. Roses and
ferns do especially well with the acidic tannins found in tea.
Don’t
have a garden? Add the used tea leaves to your enrich your compost pile – and
if you don’t have that, make one. (Remember to take the staples out of
the tea bag, if there are any.)
6. To
eliminate odors around the house.
Put
dried tea leaves in your garbage can and your kitten’s litter box.
They’ll also suck up food odors when stuck in a bowl in the fridge. And
combine them with your favorite essential oils to make all-natural air
fresheners.
Odors
might also be closer than you think: especially if you’ve been handling fish, your hands might smell…fishy. Rinse your
hands with old tea. As for your mouth and all that bad-breath bacteria,
skip the shocking Listerine and go for a gentle mint tea mouth rinse.
To
read the other seven ways to reuse tea bags, see Green Prophet.