Interesting report. It says the major type of plastic found was fibers, which implies to me it's from microfibres from clothes washing, not break up of plastic pieces.

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I feel it would invalidate the generalization that the paper seems to be written with. I agree with their findings that the use of plastics to brew tea would generate microplastics, but am not convinced the major commercial teabag sellers use plastics for raw materials.

The phrase "The UAB researchers observed that when these tea bags are used to prepare an infusion", suggests to me that the bags aren't commercially available teabags, but bags the lab mixed tea leaves in.

This research pertains mainly to the plastic containers used as tea leaf infusers, not to teabags bought from stores pre-packaged.

I'm in the US. I bought one from Europe but the metric/imperial thing meant it didn't fit over the outlet without leaking.

There are filters on the market but so far they're mainly for Europe not the US.

This is becoming a realization worldwide, that microplastics in wastewater are mainly from laundry water and tyre particles rather than breakdown of larger plastic pieces.
The additional problem? The microplastics are fires and so are more difficult to remove than plastic pieces.

Doesn't it? What's present in everyone's tap water? Not trying to scare you, just writing facts.

Damn, wasn't sure which country you were talking about when I started reading.