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Whether you like sweet or unsweet tea there are some great reuses for the tea bags you used to brew it.
- Feed the Garden—If you are up for it re-brew the used bags in a bucket of water and use the resulting weak tea to water the plants. This protects them from fungal infections. You can also just open up used tea bags and sprinkle the damp leaves around the base of the plants. This will fertilize the soil and deter garden pests like mice. But the easiest thing to do is just remove the staple, if it has one, and toss it in your compost pile.
- Carpet Cleaner—For real! Store used tea bags in the refrigerator in a cup of water to keep them from spoiling until you have enough to cover the surface you want to clean. Then open the used tea bags and let all of the leaves dry until they are still slightly damp, but no longer wet. Sprinkle the loose damp leaves over the carpet and leave them to dry completely. Once they are totally dry, vacuum them up. They not only absorb the dirt they take odors too!
- Deoderize—Toss a few in your kitchen trash bin or put a few loose leaves in the litter box. You can also put a few drops of peppermint oil on the tea bag and stashes it in cabinets to keep pest like spiders, ants and small rodents away.
- Bath in them—Run your bath with a tea bags hanging from the faucet or just toss a few in with the bath water. As tea leaves contain antioxidants, bathing in them, is great for your skin. Use a fragrant tea like orange blossom or chamomile and you’ll get a bit of aroma therapy too.