Sustainable Utilization of Tea Waste

Abstract

Due to the growing demand all over the globe, the production of tea has increased drastically over the previous decades, which in turn resulted in the generation of massive amounts tea wastes that include the discarded leaves, stems, and buds of tea plants. Both the industrial tea processing wastes and domestic waste tea residues are imposing significant threats to our environment because of their inappropriate management. Therefore, utilization of tea waste is extremely necessary to minimize its negative impacts on the environment and also to help the tea factories in overcoming the challenges they usually face in handling such huge quantities of wastes. Tea waste being rich in polyphenolic constituents can be used successfully for the synthesis of bioactive compounds with medicinal importance. Factory tea wastes as well as household spent tea leaves are promising sources of different value-added products such as activated carbon, biochar, crystalline cellulose derivatives, metallic nanoparticles, biodegradable plastics, etc. Tea waste itself and also many tea waste-derived products can be utilized successfully for environmental remediation purpose, bioenergy generation, storage of energy, sustainable construction, environment-friendly packaging, and so on. This present book chapter presents the status of research on the utilization of tea wastes in different fields. With respect to that, the effectiveness of waste tea leaves for the treatment of both wastewater and drinking water, remediation of soil and air, and production of gaseous and liquid biofuel are evaluated. Further, electrochemical performance in energy storing systems and various other emerging applications of waste tea is elaborated in details.