Tea Bags and Brussels

Brussels now even regulates the disposal of used tea bags and coffee capsules

Since 12 August 2026, the new EU Packaging Regulation has been in force in all member states. Brussels is now explicitly regulating what should happen to used tea bags, coffee pods and certain coffee capsules. It is legally considered packaging and therefore falls under European requirements for disposal, recycling and labelling. The background is incorrectly separated waste, which can contaminate compost and recycling material. Disposal rules are therefore changing for consumers, while companies have to comply with other requirements. After all, Europe has major tasks to cope with – and apparently their solution begins with the moist tea bag.

Tea bags are finally getting attention from Brussels

For decades, handling a tea bag was surprisingly uncomplicated. Tea was brewed, drank and then the bag was thrown away. But this phase of largely unregulated freedom is now over. The EU explicitly assigns tea and coffee portions to packaging law. This means that even the used tea bag finally has the European legal status that it has apparently been sorely lacking so far.

Layers and layers of bizarre dysfunction

A Matter of Emphasis

Growing proportion of deaths associated with hottest days, figures suggest

There were an estimated 4,652 heat-related deaths in England and Wales in 2022, the highest figure for any year from 1988 to 2025.

A growing proportion of deaths in England and Wales are associated with days that have the hottest temperatures, new analysis suggests.

While cold weather has historically led to higher levels of mortality than conditions of extreme heat, the gap between the two is likely to have narrowed in recent years.


More numbers and two graphs follow before we come across this -


The ONS figures are modelled estimates of mortality associated with the coldest 2.5% and hottest 2.5% of days each year, not actual counts of deaths directly caused by extreme weather.


After more numbers and another graph we come across the politics with some broad hints about future funding -


Climate transition minister Katie White said: “These shocking figures represent thousands of families who have lost someone they love.

“We’re not waiting for climate change to arrive, we’re living in the middle of it, and this summer’s record-breaking heat has brought that home.

“That’s why we’re taking some of the biggest action in a generation, preparing hospitals for extreme heat, rolling out air-to-air heat pumps to cool as well as heat homes, and accelerating clean homegrown power to tackle the root causes of climate change.

“But we won’t stop there, bringing together our best minds, backing bold new ideas and pushing forward solutions that protect the people and places we love.”

The Great British meal deal

Juno Chowla-Song has an interesting CAPX piece on British supermarket meal deals. We've never bought one and don't intend to, but the whole piece is well worth reading. 

It's another example of Labour politicians attacking traditional political targets and a useful angle on the heavily touted 'cost of living crisis'.

The Great British meal deal should make you proud

• More than a third of Britons buy at least one meal deal weekly
• Suppliers became 4% more productive in the last year thanks to supermarkets' pressure
• In Britain, it takes just 10 minutes of work to earn enough to buy a meal deal – in Tokyo, it takes almost twice as long

I moved from New York to Britain and I keep getting asked when I’m going back.

Not by my family, or my friends back home, but by British people. They tell me about flat wages, looming youth unemployment and an air of decline throughout the country. But no one talks about lunch, because everyone here takes it for granted.

I used to work in retail in Manhattan, and I would bring my own sad sandwich for lunch every day. Sometimes I would splash out on a slice of pizza. After tax, a deli sandwich cost almost as much as my hourly wage. Buying that was out of the question.

John Healey has found the wrong scapegoat for the cost-of-living crisis. Squeezing supermarkets harder won’t make lunch cheaper

In a bid to quell her restless backbenchers

Kemi Badenoch tipped to reshuffle shadow cabinet in just days in bid to quell restless backbench MPs

Kemi Badenoch has been tipped to reshuffle her Shadow Cabinet in just days in a bid to quell her restless backbenchers.

MPs are due to return to Parliament for a brief stint in Westminster on September 1, which is when the Conservative leader is believed to be eyeing up an overhaul of her top team.

Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Energy Secretary who has been dubbed a rising star within the party, is expected to step down before she takes maternity leave later on in the year.

Meanwhile, Shadow Solicitor General Helen Grant, the MP for Maidstone and Malling, is also said to be bidding adieu to the Conservative frontbench.


There is a problem with making political sense of any Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, particularly this one. To my mind there are three questions to answer first –

• Does a chap try to recall who is in the current Shadow Cabinet before reading political messages into the reshuffle?
• Or does a chap admit that he can't possibly recall who is in the current Shadow Cabinet so may as well forget all that and take a gander at the new Shadow Cabinet after the reshuffle?
• Or does a chap watch a YouTube video instead?

Storm Kim

North Korea weather agency faces month-long ideological review

Some employees could face personnel penalties or forced reassignment to hard labor

North Korea’s State Hydro-Meteorological Administration is undergoing a sweeping, party-ordered ideological review this month after a string of forecasting failures worsened storm and heat wave damage across the country in 2026. The ruling Workers’ Party of Korea has ordered agency staff and workers at related institutions to hold monthlong self-criticism sessions starting in mid-August.

A source told Daily NK on Thursday that the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea recently held the State Hydro-Meteorological Administration responsible for a series of forecasting failures. The committee ordered agency departments and cells to hold general assemblies for one month and to produce strongly worded self-criticism statements, according to the source.

A cynical chap might suggest that this is the way to deal with the Met Office and its fixation with climate change propaganda, but forced reassignment to hard labor, or even hard labour may be too much for them.

Some strongly worded self-criticism statements should be easy enough though, could happen one day before the sun goes out.

When Independent does not mean independent

From the Independent -

Supreme Court lets Trump implement major mail-in voting restrictions

The Supreme Court will let Donald Trump implement a sweeping executive order for new mail-in voting rules that could significantly restrict voters’ access to ballots in high-stakes midterm elections this fall, but the legal battle is far from over.

Federal courts have repeatedly blocked the U.S. Postal Service from further implementing Trump’s executive order that sought to create a national voter registration list that would be used to decide who is eligible to cast a ballot.

The casual reader might not suspect that this debate is about the rather obvious potential for postal voting to be used for electoral fraud. 

The possibilities are obvious in the UK and even from this side of the Atlantic they are more obvious in the US. Something to guard against with procedural rigour we might think, but the Independent takes about 800 words to get even this far -

Trump — who has spent years baselessly insisting that voting by mail is ripe for fraud, and that manipulated ballots were “rigged” against him in elections he lost — is simultaneously demanding the Senate pass his SAVE America Act, which would also restrict mail-in voting and require ID to vote, among other changes.


And to finish we have this -


The Independent stands for many things, often uniquely so. It stands independent of political party allegiance, and makes its own mind up on the issues of the day. The Independent has always been committed to challenge and debate. It launched in 1986 to create a new voice and in that time has run campaigns for issues ranging from the legalisation of marijuana to the Final Say Brexit petition.