Tethered plastic caps

I know they’re supposed to be good for the environment. But… Holy smokes they drive me up the wall. They really do!

I had no trouble adapting when aluminum can pull-tabs got replaced by push-tabs, because it was pretty much the same movement, and I could see the immediate advantage of not getting cut by a pull-tab.

But the tethered cap is fighting decades of muscle memory in me: I’m used to taking the cap off with one hand and keeping it there while taking a swig with the other. Now I unscrew the cap with one hand, but I still have to hold the cap so it’s out of the way. It feels like drinking in handcuffs each and every time…

So unlike the pull-tab, the tethered plastic bottle cap is one of those compulsory eco solutions that constantly make you feel ever-so-slightly more miserable all the time, and I hate that because ecology only works when it brings something of value both to people and to the environment.

mryessir,

Detach one side of the cap by twisting. This allows turning the cap down to the bottle neck. You can then hold the cap out of the way and the bottle with one hand.

Colour_me_triggered,

You can still remove them if you apply enough force.

MacStache,

Oh, ok. Then there’s no problem, I guess?

/s

rickyrigatoni,

Pretty much, yeah.

Talia,
@Talia@feddit.it avatar

I’m so happy I can fight my bottle when I want to drink, the solution could have been to have aluminium caps like for the glass bottles or even to switch to only glass bottles but noooo, let’s use more plastic to make sure people wrestle with their beverages

rickyrigatoni,

acting this dramatic about a little piece of plastic is embarassing dude, stop posting

RememberTheApollo_,

I get why they’re there. But I don’t like them because you now need to orient the bottle in such a manner you aren’t sticking your nose in the cap. Not such a big deal for small soda bottle tops, but I like kefir and some sport drink tops are huge, and that makes it pretty damn annoying to work around and now you’ve got this cap resting on your cheek sometimes.

Bruncvik,
@Bruncvik@lemmy.world avatar

I saw it for the first time last summer. Did a little reading, and according to the news articles, it was a EU directive, but it had been heavily lobbied for by Coca Cola. If I remember right, all EU countries should have implemented the necessary legislature by June this year.

I personally just tear the caps off. Can’t get used to them.

metaStatic,

I would throw this nonsense on the ground out of spite and never buy whatever brand thought this was ok again.

hdnsmbt,

I’m convinced those do very little for the environment. There was some really smart executive at the plastic bottle company who made this up so they can charge more from beverage companies.

olutukko,

They are making a ton of similar laws already. So the bottle caps alone might not do that much but those all laws combined are doing a lot

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Unless we remove plastic from the environment entirely, this is the smallest band-aid available on a massive gushing chest wound.

Misconduct,

Whaaat? Nooo. Remember that time we banned straws and it was gonna be the big push we needed to start real change but then everyone just predictably patted themselves on the back and did basically nothing ever again? 😀

crapwittyname, (edited )

Yup. This is the last vestiges of the diminishing returns of the doomed strategy of blaming consumers for climate change.

Malidak,

Even better. All the bottling and filling machine manufacturers could sell expensive upgrade packages for the beverage companies to even be able to work with the new caps. In our case we even had to completely retire two older machines because there are incompatible and buy new ones. Great for the environment for sure.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

This is genuinely one of the most amazing inventions of the last decade. Now you never lose the cap and you don’t have to hold it in your hand.

I can’t believe anyone thinks this is not amazing.

Geth,

The cap doesn’t stay where you put it, usually is still a bit wet from the liquid and that drips on your face when you take a sip. If you have facial hair, you have to navigate your way around the cap as well.

I’m not against the idea in principle, but the implementations have ranged from mildly irritating to unusable for me.

Linkerbaan, (edited )
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe I don’t drink from small bottles enough but even then I just turn them out of the way.

I find it intriguing how people have such different experiences with it.

Black616Angel,

I have cut my lips twice on these fuckers. Also just this week while pouring milk, the cap somehow slipped right under the stream and spilled the milk everywhere.

Who loses their bottlecap?

Also this makes it harder for kids to drink from bottles, since they can’t put their whole mouth around.

I hate these shit stains with a passion.

I am 99% sure, thia was all just a PR stunt by some bottle company. If they really wanted to do something for the environment, they would go for glass bottles again, since they can be recycled forever.

Linkerbaan,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

You can bend them out of the way and they don’t break off I find that really useful.

Especially for bottles and cartons that are poured into a glass.

Black616Angel,

Yes and if you bend them out of the way, some become sharp and I poured a carton of milk. So no, I to not like them.

To each their own except I have no (real) choice.

Ultraviolet,

Oh, that’s intentional? I just assumed it was a manufacturing defect where the perforation doesn’t quite detach the cap from the ring.

acetanilide,

Same … But i also don’t drink many of these bottles so maybe that’s why

MilitantAtheist,

Just twist it the fuck off

ThunderComplex,

This isn’t possible. Every time I tried that it leaves behind 2 nasty & sharp plastic prongs. I’ve found no way to avoid that. And they can’t even be removed, I tried with pliers and a lighter and some sharp plastic spikes will inevitably remain.

JudahBenHur,

jesus christ

this is what you think about: the little plastic points on your plastic soda bottle from where you tore the plastic cap off

ThunderComplex,

I know, right? Talk about first world issues

Lorindol,

The caps must be made of different plastic in my country.

When I came across first attached cap, I just ripped it off clean without thinking twice. No problem whatsoever.

I have never discarded a bottle without screwing the cork back, but I guess many people do. Why they would do so, that I cannot fathom.

Maggoty,

Plastic needs to die. There’s no point in designing a cap that goes into recycling reliably when we know recycling plastic just gets dumped in third world countries.

jol,

PET bottles are actually the most recycled or their plastic upcycled. But yeah, needs to die.

lud,

Yeah, PET is great for recycling.

Here, 87% of all PET bottles are recycled.

JudahBenHur,

wherew is that? come on dude if youre going to flex on your country’s recyling rate with a specific percentage write the name of the dang country please

lud,

I live in the Nordics which all have a pretty good recycling rate overall.

JudahBenHur,

the just started doing pfand return here in ireland for cans and plastic bottles, but not glass bottles (we throw those into a bottle bank)

lud,

Pant is great.

FlyingSquid, (edited )
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe, but PET still contributes to the microplastics problem and I wouldn’t be surprised if the recycling process adds more PET microplastics to the atmosphere so they can be carried around the planet.

Pyr_Pressure,

I don’t understand why soft drinks are even sold in plastic bottles anymore. Cans work perfectly fine. Sure you might want to re-seal the lid or something but if that’s the case just buy a reusable drink container.

pewgar_seemsimandroid,

plastic is cheap i guess?

Maggoty,

Ding ding ding. Yet again we’re paying for their externalized costs.

rbos,
@rbos@lemmy.ca avatar

Aluminum cans are great but still use a plastic lining, so I’m not sure overall whether it comes out better. You still get microplastics.

Skua,

I personally find that breaking one of the two connection points makes the lid get in the way much less

TheProtagonist,

I had no idea that this is a global phenomenon.

Muscar,

How are people having problems with these? They’re better in every way, you gotta be dumb as a brick to have any issues with using them.

Honytawk,

The idea is solid, the execution is just awful.

If it had just a bit more slack, at least you will be able to close the bottle without having to jerk it. Add even a little more, and you would be able to drink from the bottle without it poking out your eye.

Crampon,

I’m so fucking tired.

It’s estimated the fishing industry is losing around 400 metric tonnes of fishing gear into Norwegian waters every year.

Now we are punished for this by attaching the stupid caps to the bottles. Why are we not able to fix problems in this society hellbent for self destruction?

Why are every problem pushed down on the working class just wanting to enjoy a soda in this capitalistic hellscape.

nis,

Attaching the caps to the bottles fixes a problem.

The lost fishing gear is another problem.

Fixing one will not fix the other. Fixing one helps. Fixing both helps more.

Maggoty,

You know what would fix that problem? Not using plastic. It doesn’t actually get recycled no matter what doodad they attach to it.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was some easily-recyclable material that humans have been using since Ancient Rome at least that they used to mass-produce drinks in all the time but don’t anymore?

Crampon,

So. In Norway we have this great system for returning used bottles for cash. We get 0.2$ for a 0.5 liter bottle. People are returning the bottle with the cap on. Seeing bottle caps laying around isn’t a thing.

Instead of attaching the cap to the bottle. Make a return system for the bottles. People are not systematically seperating the bottle and the cap as the cap keeps the sugary residue left inside the bottle in place instead of in the bag you carry them with to the store for returning them for that sweet cash.

Attaching the cap is a solution looking for a problem.

Having travelled a lot around in Europe I have never seen bottle caps laying the street alone. People throw them together or not at all.

This is bureaucracy time spent on caps instead of actual problems. So they could focus on actual issues instead of this shit. It’s a testament to how they blame every issue on random people instead of the industries inventing new ways to fuck up any ecosystem.

Raxiel,

They might not get discarded separately, but do they get recycled separately?
I always loosen caps when throwing them in the green bin so the bottles will compress more easily. Others might just throw them in separately or they might even pop off once compacted.
I don’t know how much of a problem having them separated might be (I’m just wondering out loud) but I could see how keeping things together and not having lots of small fiddly bits in mixed loads prior to sorting could be beneficial.
Sounds like it doesn’t take much contamination for recycling companies to redirect whole loads to landfill, so it it helps there it’s good I guess?

Krauerking,

But… Squeeze the air out of the bottle and twist the cap back on and it suddenly stays more compressed. Literally sealing the vacuum and the sugar. And the caps are generally the same plastic material.

The issue with recyclers sending batches to landfill is that they are a for profit company so if no one is buy the materials or it’s more costly to process than the final product then it’s just tossed. We avoided that by sending it all wholesale to other countries who realized that it was also cheaper to use raw materials. And they didn’t want our unsorted garbage labeled as recyclables.

This is mostly unnecessary and like swapping to new straw manufacturing or thicker plastic bags to be “reusable” actually more detrimental in the short term or not beneficial in a meaningful way.

nis,

Yes. Deposits for recyclable bottles also fixes a problem. Seems like we are fixing problems all over the place :)

EssentialCoffee,

We also have that in Michigan. You still see bottles and cans places. Historically, there have a lot of ‘reward programs’ that incentivised keeping bottle caps separate (either from the company or occasionally locally for reasons). I also distinctly remember it being advertised that bottle needed to be capless for recycling, so we always removed the caps and tossed them. Only recently have I seen verbiage on bottles requesting them to be recycled with caps on, which I usually forget to do because it’s habit to toss the caps.

Crampon,

Cool. The more you know.

Funny how there are such different practices.

Holyhandgrenade,
@Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world avatar

This is classic greenwashing. It’s the smallest possible gesture a soda company can make to show that they “care about the environment” while not making any actual change to be more eco-friendly.
Same thing with those awful paper straws. Are you really asking me to believe that a massive burger chain can neutralize their footprint by giving you a straw that turns soggy in minutes? The straws were never the real problem, but it’s the smallest possible step they can take to seem eco-friendly.

ColeSloth,

I haven’t experienced these bottles since I’m in the US, but by that picture; are they not easy to just rip off so it’s normal again?

Crampon,

Fairly easy to rip off. But they sometimes leave some sharp pieces of plastic poking your lips. Also it’s annoying.

Would probably be better if the tether was longer.

noobnarski,

Its the same with the paper straws while disposable electronic cigarettes are still allowed, which not only contain plastics, but also electronics and a rechargeable lithium cell.

All the while a reusable vape works just as well, while paper straws just suck and they even contain plastic as well.

settoloki,

I mean you can also get reusable metal straws the same as a reusable vape.

Zorsith,
@Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I like the pasta straws as a concept, stays solid AND something will eat it when disposed of. Win win!

noobnarski,

I think that little piece of plastic doesnt really make a huge impact, its not a lot of plastic and we have so many other places where we could guide manufacturers to include less plastic in packaging.

Its much more energy intensive to produce a disposable vape, they contain more plastic, the battery has to be produced and its unlikely they end up in electronics recycling, where they belong.

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