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REMEMBER PLASTIC STRAWS? Well wave goodbye to ‘untethered caps’ as the same EU law that made it so we had to use paper straws is now coming after our lids.
The EU Directive on single-use plastics encourages citizens to cut down and properly dispose of plastic materials. In 2019, the first enforcement of this directive came in when the Government decided State bodies would no longer purchase single-use plastic.
As well as cutting down on their use, the directive, adopted in 2019 and lay out guidelines and timelines to member states to adopt and create new laws, aims to change how plastic products are designed.
In the case of the plastic caps, which according to the EU are discarded on “most of the beaches in the Union”, this meant making it so that you must dispose of the bottle and the cap together.
To tackle the vast amount of plastic lids that are not properly disposed of in the EU, the directive sets out that companies must fulfil specific product design requirements so that the cap and the bottle are discarded together.
Metal and glass containers are exempt from the EU guidelines.
Companies, namely Coca-Cola, introduced their new design earlier this year and began rolling out the new bottles in February. By May, the Wall Street Journal had reported that the new bottle caps keep “hitting soda drinkers in the face“.
The soft drinks company claimed that the new design was part of their ‘World Without Waste journey’. The announcement came just a few weeks ahead of this phase of the EU directive coming into force.
The directive does intend to go further, banning plastic sticks for balloons, reduce the use of plastic food containers – especially for fruit in supermarkets – and an outright ban on single-use cotton buds.
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It uses more plastic to include the tether and I rip it off anyway. Not a smart idea.
@Sean Money: hey there James Dean ya bleeding rebel ya
@Sean Money: majes more sense to have no plastic lid, and return it back to the way it was 20 years ago
@Michael o Dwyer: Well I have to because if not I dont rip it off the feckin milk spills everywhere
More reason to want out of Europe
@Vinny Hughes: more reason for your type to leave the country
@Pat Hazzard: it’s purely optics while the big pollution issues go untackled. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad.
@Vinny Hughes: See ya!
@Vinny Hughes: You can leave.
@Vinny Hughes: Go to England then
Why not revert back to glass?
@Athena: It’s more expensive than plastic. Producers don’t like it and a lot of consumers don’t either.
Same reason we have beer cans.
@Wolfgang Bonow: compared to bottles beer tastes nasty out of cans.
@Athena: I was wondering that myself, I looked into it.
Glass is a lot heavier, and they claim the extra weight adds to transport and materials cost, and this means plastic and paper containers work out better overall. That’s the reasoning behind it.
For example, a paper/plastic 1 litre milk carton weighs 35 grams empty, but a 1 pint glass bottle weighs about 350 grams empty. In otherworlds, 350 grams of cardboard (the same weight as 1 glass bottle) can store 21 pints of milk. Cardboard containers are far more efficient.
@Conor Kelly: Different types of fizz, Glass can’t keep the carbonation in, but can with the nitros, thats why SanPelly has the smaller bubbles in the glass bottle and why Lucozade went crap when they initially went plastic (Nitro is less soluble in liquid). Personally prefer a smaller can for beer, aluminium is very sensitive to temperature and warms up massively in the hand, especially at the large sizes, 400ml, 300ml, means more fizz (less beer) and a quicker drinking time.
Firstly, do we even recycle glass in Ireland anymore? If it had to be exported for reuse, it’s so much heavier. I can’t see anyone opting for weightier glass to carry home. Maybe okay to load up in a car boot in bulk – not really green. It’s also that people are living further from supermarkets so have to stock up and carry more home in one trip.
Plus it’s breakable & a nightmare to clear up when you have pets.
@David Jordan: Money for a flawless eco service? OR Money for a handful of billionaire’s?… we will never know the first one, humans will not be able to address that
Would it not make more sense to focus efforts on the 1.6 million square kilometre Great Pacific garbage patch, instead of a few plastic caps?
@Meh Meh: can focus on both?
@Meh Meh: Were currently only focused on ’1.6 square kilometres’ in the middle of Dublin
Initially thought they were a faulty produced carton… bit of a nuisance trying to drink from it.
@Kieran Menon: Literally they tried every possible design solution and this was the winner s/
Plastic straws being banned made no major difference but caused a lot of people majopr issues. Paper straws do not work.
But it was a good optic just like this.
That is all it is most of the tine optics!
A lot like everybody wants to walk and cycle everywhere, false but it looks great for the PR team. Problem is not everybody can or wants to.
Just break them off not worth the hassle of drinking while the are attached.
very annoying indeed
Pain in the hole. Break ‘em off. Can’t get a drink from a bottle now without spilling all down your chin.
@Ciaran De Bhal: agreed. But why dont they just make the joining bit longer?
@Ciaran De Bhal: It’s very easy just turn it to the side and it’s no problem to drink from.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: much easier for those of you who talk out of the side of your mouth
@Ciaran De Bhal: Ever thought of using a glass or a cup?
@Vincent Alexander: no cuz that has to go into the dishwasher then which uses Imaginary green electric which is wayyy to expensive
@Alan: You don’t get to ask industry why they do these things, thats not how the free market works, it’s basically do what you like and amend in the cheapest box ticking manner. We need to keep our outrage for the public sector only.
I burn all my cartons and plastic bottles when I’m finished with them, but it’s still cold out
@Old Jim: whatever it takes to keep the troll farm warm Jim
People also complained when the ring pull was attached permanently to drink cans. But we got used to it.
Saw people buying bottles of coke in the Point on Monday and caps taken off by bar staff. Will they be allowed to do that going forward??
Get shot of them especially fizzy drinks get in the way when drinking
I’d prefer if the plastic using companies had to subsidise beach litter-warden salaries. They’re going to price final product to the max tolerance anyway, so might as well take a bit before the shareholders.
They’re seemingly difficult for the mouth breathing brigade to manoeuvre.
@Jack Hayes: Just click it right back 180 degrees (it pops over and stays there), and if necessary, swivel it around to the side – it took two seconds on the first cap to work out that it’s perfectly fine.
@Stephen Wallis: common sense is not so common lol
There’s a tiny dimple which holds the lid open provided you fold the lid back 180 degrees.
In other news; I have some used cotton buds I can share. No?
Another green looney idea.Makes it awkward to use so most people will rip them off.
Only figured that out today…click it back…was twisting them of
I just rip the lid off, peg it in the fire…recycled!
Go back to putting everything in the recycling bin half the time the machine is full and there’s no staff to change it. A lot of the time machine won’t read the items aswel it’s a disaster and it cost a fortune,should have just encouraged more recycling with maybe a small incentive putting a few euro off you’re bin charges in recycling bin is not mixed with anything other than a full.
@Paddy C: 62 private companies do whatever they like with our waste, we’re not able to tell them otherwise.
I presume there’s some sort of method to their madness but is there really that much waste having them separable? Haven’t seen them yet but they look awkward.
@ecrowley ecrowley: Even if the loose caps make it into the recycling channels, items that small are hard to sort & recycle correctly, and many loose caps get lost into the environment (if you’re a certain age you’ll remember how many discarded ring-pulls you’d see everywhere). Each cap looks insignificant, but scaled up to tens of millions, it will make a difference.
@Stephen Wallis: i thought the reason behind these caps was when ya are finished drinking your bottle ya replace the cap and the bottle is full of air so cant be damaged and brought back to the return machines that dont work, so they get put in the recycle bin so we are charged twice to get rid of them
Let me guess another tax pushed on us from eu. Bottle banks ok see how could work bit should except all bottles. Whos getting fat account with that introduction. Paper straws funny when get smoothy cup lid plastic. Tax the rich on this one. Running out money end week with this government. Rip off Ireland
I cut my lip on one yesterday..
Now I look like I have herpes.
Not ideal.
There may be more reasons to do this than just plastic pollution which is of limited impact:
A Rare Antelope Dies After Choking on a Plastic Cap at Tennessee Zoo https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/us/antelope-chokes-death-tennessee-zoo.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zU0.EQN9.0l4Oo-vEO8S0
Its really unfortunate that as a contemporary species we insist on the cheapest, worst designed option, design is still seen as a luxury rather than a necessity, this idea is born out of industry convenience, easy to apply to existing systems but terrible functionally as the cap is always in the direct flow of the liquid… Someday maybe we decide to simply refuse sales for companies that do not adhere to standards that we should be setting.
What’s wrong with a foil lids on most of these products dont use plastic at all !
Maybe – I’ve just bought 2 yoghurts in a cardboard protective sleeve which didn’t stop one of them leaking all over my backpack, through a foil lid that wasn’t loose when I put it on top of everything else. Lids seem more resilient.
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