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[calistan]

For the past few months in the UK, most plastic bottles have had a new style of tethered cap that can't be fully removed. You twist off the cap but it remains attached to the ring around the bottle neck. A slogan on the bottle explains that you should recycle the cap with the bottle.

Thought it was another dumb British government brainwave or something, but I just got back from a weekend in Paris and it's the same there too. Apparently it's a new EU directive that has just come into force.

I always crush the bottles and screw the caps back on before recycling anyway, to save space. The people who throw their shit out of car windows will continue to do so, but now with the cap neatly attached. Meanwhile, everyone who uses plastic bottles will have a stupid cap bumping into their lips when they drink.

This is utterly pointless. Why not just ban the damned things?

^ I don't have any bottles in the house at the moment but it's on tetrapak containers too. Anything with a plastic cap.

 

[FatallyYours]

 

[EviLore]

Why drink straight from the carton when you could be using a paper straw that disintegrates in five seconds instead

 

[TintoConCasera]

I hate it.

It's dumb, I see no reason for it other than implying that the consumer is a dumb fuck that keeps losing their caps, and it makes drinking from the bottle much more uncomfortable than before.

#FreeBottleCaps

 

[The Cockatrice]

Yeah its a UE rule and it's the dumbest fucking thing ever. Whoever thought this was a good idea should get kicked off this planet.

 

[Stitch]

meanwhile in other countries

 

[SJRB]

It is so retarded it is almost based.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Wait, this is real?

What is wrong with the world?

How does this help anything? Is there a video of where this was discussed/debated?

Let’s just got back to glass and cans I suppose

 

[AJUMP23]

Ruled by unelected bureaucrats.

 

[calistan]

No doubt some EU geniuses are being heartily congratulated by execs from Coca-Cola and Evian, for making this crap seem just a tiny bit greener. But in the supermarkets where they sell these things, there's barely a single item that doesn't come wrapped in plastic.

A few years ago, when I was a kid, this is how we used to get our fizzy drinks. Sometimes delivered by the milkman, in an electric vehicle, and the empties were taken away to be reused, not melted down.

 

[dave_d]

I hate it.

It's dumb, I see no reason for it other than implying that the consumer is a dumb fuck that keeps losing their caps, and it makes drinking from the bottle much more uncomfortable than before.

#FreeBottleCaps

Umm, I could point out how often I'd see people stop on train tracks to wait for the red light when I was commuting. (There's literally a sign telling you not to do it.) I could mention the stupid thing I saw yesterday. (Yeah the average person is not very smart.)

 

[SirKicksalot]

IIRC bottle caps are 4% of the plastic waste on European beaches but they travel a lot and animals (especially big birds) ingest them.
The caps will probably be updated to a less annoying design. The tabs for beverage cans were updated, they used to be removable.

 

[StueyDuck]

For the past few months in the UK, most plastic bottles have had a new style of tethered cap that can't be fully removed. You twist off the cap but it remains attached to the ring around the bottle neck. A slogan on the bottle explains that you should recycle the cap with the bottle.

Thought it was another dumb British government brainwave or something, but I just got back from a weekend in Paris and it's the same there too. Apparently it's a new EU directive that has just come into force.

I always crush the bottles and screw the caps back on before recycling anyway, to save space. The people who throw their shit out of car windows will continue to do so, but now with the cap neatly attached. Meanwhile, everyone who uses plastic bottles will have a stupid cap bumping into their lips when they drink.

This is utterly pointless. Why not just ban the damned things?

^ I don't have any bottles in the house at the moment but it's on tetrapak containers too. Anything with a plastic cap.

give me 10 seconds and i'll remove that for you

 

[drganon]

I vaguely remember dealing with one of those caps when I was in Italy. Being an American, I just assumed something was wrong with the bottle and just kept trying until it ripped off.

 

[GymWolf]

Same in italy, i just break the thing.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

I believe Coca Cola is the world's biggest plastic polluter owing to its plastic bottles (and caps).

This minor inconvenience (twist it round to the side if it's pushing against your nose, geniuses!) is a tiny step towards trying to improve things.

But of course, the best thing to do is to avoid single use plastics whenever possible.

 

[Little Mac]

Reminds me when celebrities would endorse boxed water instead of plastic bottled water. I get the impact on the environment plastic bottles produce, but when boxed water companies are charging $3-4 for a fucking liter, the disconnect is very apparent. Guess I’ll just stick with my Brita.

 

[Zathalus]

Didn’t go far enough, plastics need to be banned as much as possible.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

That’s totally different than what I’ve seen. In Canada some water bottles I’ve seen you twist off the cap and it leaves a string which is good enough to hold the cap. If you twist it like normal you break it off easy. I don’t know if this is by design or if the plastic thread is just leftover plastic from the mould. But it does work to keep a cap hinged unless you fully break it off.

 

[John Bilbo]

It is a new EU standard. I read a Finnish politician was part of the team responsible for this standard.

As a Finn I'd like to humbly apologize for the inconvenience caused and I wholeheartedly understand if this is grounds for a permanent ban.

 

[calistan]

IIRC bottle caps are 4% of the plastic waste on European beaches but they travel a lot and animals (especially big birds) ingest them.
The caps will probably be updated to a less annoying design. The tabs for beverage cans were updated, they used to be removable.

We used to use the old ring-pull tabs as missile launchers in the playground - a skilled shooter could hit a fat kid from 20 paces.

The thing that annoys me about this isn't so much the impracticality of drinking from a bottle with a dangling cap, or dealing with the sharp edges left after you tear the thing off.

It's that it's a token political gesture, to enable a bunch of bureaucrats to say look, we're doing something positive. Tap water is generally high quality in Europe, but they wouldn't consider stopping companies selling it in plastic bottles and telling people it's healthier that way.

 

[Hudo]

I like it. It filters out the retards by preventing them from drinking. Based EU.

 

[Wildebeest]

You can only really enjoy the sweetness of the disgusting, acidic fizzy drink if you first experience the unbearable pain of the non-removable plastic cap.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

It's that it's a token political gesture, to enable a bunch of bureaucrats to say look, we're doing something positive. Tap water is generally high quality in Europe, but they wouldn't consider stopping companies selling it in plastic bottles and telling people it's healthier that way.

Agree with this 100%.

We ought to be banning plastic bottles anyway, but particularly for water.

I'd personally just tax them ridiculously so if anyone is really desperate for a plastic bottle of water, they can buy one for £50 or something. But otherwise, just get used to carrying a reusable bottle or flask with you.

 

[EviLore]

Agree with this 100%.

We ought to be banning plastic bottles anyway, but particularly for water.

I'd personally just tax them ridiculously so if anyone is really desperate for a plastic bottle of water, they can buy one for £50 or something. But otherwise, just get used to carrying a reusable bottle or flask with you.

You need drinking water to remain alive. But let’s make it $1000 per bottle to save the environment. Maybe give you an electric shock when you buy one. Meanwhile Taylor Swift just took another hundred flights on her multiple private jets.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

You need drinking water to remain alive. But let’s make it $1000 per bottle to save the environment. Maybe give you an electric shock when you buy one. Meanwhile Taylor Swift just took another hundred flights on her multiple private jets.

Well, it might be different where you are, but as noted in the post I was replying to, tap water is fine in Europe. It's very common to carry a water bottle anyway where I am and there are more and more water fountains appearing for public use where you can either drink from or fill a bottle. May be more/less common in different areas.

I don't think I'd go as far as $1000 for a bottle, but I probably went over the top at £50 too. Maybe they ought to be 5xcurrent price or something like that.

I suspect that the scale of plastic bottle pollution means it's a bigger problem than Taylor Swift's private jet, but given the option, I'd ground that forever too.

 

[jufonuk]

No doubt some EU geniuses are being heartily congratulated by execs from Coca-Cola and Evian, for making this crap seem just a tiny bit greener. But in the supermarkets where they sell these things, there's barely a single item that doesn't come wrapped in plastic.

A few years ago, when I was a kid, this is how we used to get our fizzy drinks. Sometimes delivered by the milkman, in an electric vehicle, and the empties were taken away to be reused, not melted down.

Yeah but those guys kept shagging everyone’s mum.

 

[Tams]

No doubt some EU geniuses are being heartily congratulated by execs from Coca-Cola and Evian, for making this crap seem just a tiny bit greener. But in the supermarkets where they sell these things, there's barely a single item that doesn't come wrapped in plastic.

A few years ago, when I was a kid, this is how we used to get our fizzy drinks. Sometimes delivered by the milkman, in an electric vehicle, and the empties were taken away to be reused, not melted down.

A few years ago

A few years ago

A few years ago

But seriously, that was a better system. You could even get paid for taking them back.

It is actually coming back into vogue in some places. I think in Germany they do have more glass bottles for fizzy drinks now? In the UK, milkmen have come back from the brink, and you can actually get fresh milk in glass bottles delivered to your door every morning again.

 

[Big Baller]

Ive gotten used to them. Some caps are annoying tho. Same with paper straws. Fuck everybody who don't use trashbins

 

[SirKicksalot]

But seriously, that was a better system. You could even get paid for taking them back.

It is actually coming back into vogue in some places. I think in Germany they do have more glass bottles for fizzy drinks now? In the UK, milkmen have come back from the brink, and you can actually get fresh milk in glass bottles delivered to your door every morning again.

Recycling machines that give you money back for plastic bottles have been implemented in some European countries. They instantly reduce public waste.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

This is what you are upset about? A complete nothing burger? Most of these you can just push all the way back so they lock at a 90 degree angle, and if for some reason you are still unable to drink from the bottle...turn it sideways? There's no reason for the cap to be touching you unless you force it to.

 

[YCoCg]

I just break them off, only takes a few twists and a snap.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

But seriously, that was a better system. You could even get paid for taking them back.

It is actually coming back into vogue in some places. I think in Germany they do have more glass bottles for fizzy drinks now? In the UK, milkmen have come back from the brink, and you can actually get fresh milk in glass bottles delivered to your door every morning again.

Good news:

MORE BANG FOR YOUR BOTTLES: LIDL LAUNCHES FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND RECYCLING PILOT OFFERING ‘UNCAPPED’ SAVINGS ON SHOPPING - Lidl Great Britain

Lidl launches first of its kind recycling pilot

corporate.lidl.co.uk

Hopefully this gets rolled out everywhere.

 

[Hrk69]

We have them too and I thought they were laughably easy to remove

 

[calistan]

You need drinking water to remain alive. But let’s make it $1000 per bottle to save the environment. Maybe give you an electric shock when you buy one. Meanwhile Taylor Swift just took another hundred flights on her multiple private jets.

Nobody in the UK needs bottled water, but apparently people here spend over $2 bn per year on it. I think most places where they don't have access to drinkable water from a tap, they probably can't afford plastic bottles of the stuff.

There's a novel by Will Self -The Book of Dave - set in a distant future where our primitive descendants refer to the era of the ancients as 'The Made In China' due to the copious amounts of mysterious indestructible treasure they dredge up.

 

[MudoSkills]

Good luck getting one of these cunts to screw back on properly.

 

[thefool]

If I don't rip them my nieces will somehow spill the drink. Maybe that's the real purpose, to buy more.

 

[Tams]

Nobody in the UK needs bottled water, but apparently people here spend over $2 bn per year on it. I think most places where they don't have access to drinkable water from a tap, they probably can't afford plastic bottles of the stuff.

There's a novel by Will Self -The Book of Dave - set in a distant future where our primitive descendants refer to the era of the ancients as 'The Made In China' due to the copious amounts of mysterious indestructible treasure they dredge up.

In places that can't afford bottled water, there's often a grift where they take used plastic water bottles and refill them, from... somewhere. The big grifters even buy plastic sealing machines for the tops.

 

[Stitch]

Well, it might be different where you are, but as noted in the post I was replying to, tap water is fine in Europe.

Yes, americans get lead, paint thinner, 2-4-5 trioxin and a heavy dose of chlorine with their tap water, but in most parts of Europe the tap water is fine and in many tests it was cleaner AND had more minerals than the shit in the plastic bottles. Also less plastic of course..

selling water to Europeans is like selling fridges to eskimos, but it somehow works

 

[Audiophile]

Why drink straight from the carton when you could be using a paper straw that disintegrates in five seconds instead

Paper straws suck.

 

[calistan]

In places that can't afford bottled water, there's often a grift where they take used plastic water bottles and refill them, from... somewhere. The big grifters even buy plastic sealing machines for the tops.

There was a brand that Coca-Cola introduced to the UK about 20 years ago, called Dasani. It was a notorious PR disaster / scam, because first it was revealed that they were just using regular water from a London suburb, i.e. tap water. Second, tests revealed that Coca-Cola's bottling process had introduced a carcinogen, bromide, to the water.

I was amazed to see Dasani is still sold in other countries, like Canada and the US. Here, the brand was toxic as the product, so they got that shit out of the UK fast and cancelled plans to launch it in Europe. But I don't doubt that people in Dasani-free locations are getting the same rubbish under other brand names.

 

[jshackles]

This reminds me of a law we passed here that bans restaurants and fast food joints from handing out single use plastic items (straws, forks, etc.) unless the customer specifically asks for them.

It's so dumb. It saves the corporations money, but it means that any time I go to a fast food joint I'm having to drink my coke without a straw or try to manage a frosty from Wendy's without a spoon.

 

[Husky]

Why drink straight from the carton when you could be using a paper straw that disintegrates in five seconds instead

My local movie theater has biodegradable straws that work just about the same as the good old polluting straws. They felt plastic, and I remember they had a textured look to them, but I can't remember if I could actually feel the texture. Maybe someday not long from now, we'll have biodegradable bottles... or at least biodegradable caps.

 

[TGO]

I just rip them off

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

People now just tear the cap off out of spite. This solves nothing. If someone is enough of a dickhead to throw away a bottlecap in the open, they’ll be wanting to do this even more when the cap comes off so easily anyway AND it’s a bloody nuisance. The EU nanny state is such a joke.

 

[TGO]

People now just tear the cap off out of spite. This solves nothing. If someone is enough of a dickhead to throw away a bottlecap in the open, they’ll be wanting to do this even more when the cap comes off so easily anyway AND it’s a bloody nuisance. The EU nanny state is such a joke.

Most pop the lid back on when they're finished anyway so I don't see the point.
Same with paper bags, can't be recycled if it's soiled and you just end up with paper bags on the street.
Which is the reason we got rid of them in the first place.

 

[Nydius]

Is tethering the cap going to magically change the fact that, of all the plastic bottles submitted for recycling, only ~5% actually get recycled? Or the fact that “virgin” plastic is still significantly cheaper than recycled or mixed recycled plastic? Is it going to suddenly solve littering?

No?

So it’s just performative nonsense then, like most government initiatives.

As an aside, what fascinates (and frustrates) me is how there’s seemingly no uniform standard for recycling. Some places require caps off, some say leave the caps on. Some places require rinsing before recycling, some don’t.

I digress. Despite the awful styrofoam fast food packaging and leaded gasoline, I’m pretty sure we were all more environmentally friendly in the 80s, before we were all sold the myth of infinitely recycleable plastic. Stores used paper bags, only 2 liters of soda came in plastic, 16oz bottles were glass. Condiment jars were glass, and eggs were in cardboard cartons, not styrofoam or plastic clamshells. I found an old family dinner picture from visiting my grandparents in 1983 and the only plastic in the entire picture were my parents cigarette lighters.

 

[Melon Husk]

Apparently it's a new EU directive that has just come into force.

Good thing you got out of EU, eh

The EU nanny state is such a joke.

You DID get out of EU... right??

 

[TGO]

I think it's only a coke thing at the moment because Pepsi bottles don't have this.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

You DID get out of EU... right??

I’m Italian. I’m in this to the bitter end.