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.
You must log in or register to comment.
Easy solution: only buy drinks in aluminum cans or glass bottles. World is already drowning in microplastic pollution.
Aluminium cans have a thin plastic liner inside them that’s almost impossible to recycle. I’m not sure if you’re fixing much by switching to cans, here…
Glass is better, but any carbonated drink turns into a bomb if you put more than half a liter or so in a closed glass container.
The plastic liners in and on tins and cans - referred to as lacquer in the industry - don’t impact recycling. When the tins are heated to thousands of degrees for recycling, what is left of the plastic liner, the inks and UV materials; is separated and basically skimmed off, leaving the metal.
https://ekko.world/plastic-lining-on-beverage-food-cans/226751
I had only learned of the liner this year, and have been wondering about this ever since, but always forgot what I wanted to look up every time I got to the search bar. You have rescued me from repeating this for the remainder of the year, and have my thanks. All of the thanks.
Aluminium cans have a thin plastic liner inside them that’s almost impossible to recycle
Confidently incorrect as a motherfucker.
You’re saying without hesitation that one of the most recycled and recyclable materials ever created is flat out not recyclable. What the fuck?
But He is right… Most cans have a layer
That doesn’t make them non-recyclable does it?
It makes it Hard to recycle… Because splitting aluminium from Plastik isnt easy
Yes, it is actually. You melt the aluminum and skim off any remaining plastic and contaminants from the top of the molten aluminum. It’s a standard, millenniums old process for any metal working.
Surely making aluminum and glass cans isn’t good for the environment either is it?
Making brand new ones from raw sand/ore isn’t great when you consider the need to mine and refine those into something useable. Lots of energy and effort goes into that part. The difference is that glass and aluminum are essentially infinitely recyclable, while plastic is often not. It takes way less effort and minimal input of new resources to recycle a glass bottle. Hell, with a robust bottle return system you can skip over the recycling part entirely - just send them back to the bottling facility to be cleaned and refilled.
Emphasis on “plastic is often not”. Only PET (#1 on the symbol) can truly be recycled into new material, and usually it’s tossed in with other materials and contaminated enough to make that not possible. There is the reusable path, where plastics are remolded into other purposes, but that’s not “really” recycling and likely ends there for that form to eventually degrade and be trashed.
So just make more things with PET and recycle better, right? I’m guessing there’s limitations on what PET can be used for given its characteristics vs. other plastics, and it is still cheaper to just get new material for new PET rather than recycle. So of course companies are going to go that route.
The interesting thing that I learned not so long ago from the YT channel Climate Town is that people see the triangle symbol with the plastic type number inside and assume it’s recyclable, since that’s the recycle symbol. But it’s not that symbol, it’s just designed similar to give that impression.
Pet can only be remelted and shaped before it starts breaking down…
Well, glass bottles can be washed and reused. The beer industry does this as standard practice.
Glass and aluminum are easier to recycle. Actually recycling these two materials are an order of magnitude easier and cheaper than new material.
Plastic can be recycled, but has a faster degradation rate and the infrastructure isn’t present on the scale of glass and aluminum.
Interesting. How do the beer companies get their bottles back to reuse?
In my area, it through the recycling. Beer bottles have always been worth $0.05, so its worth it to return them to a depot. They also get sorted out if you leave them on the curb or takenby someone who wants the bottle deposit.
Returning them through the deposit makes sense, but I never would think that the recycling pickup people would sort them. Ours just take it to the dump
the recycling pickup people
It’s not, it’s usually retirees or homeless people doing it for cash
Aluminum and glass are natural and just use heat and presses to renew and transform into desired forms.
Plastic takes a lot more processing and isn’t readily recyclable.
I wish there was more water sold in those little milk boxes or aluminum cans.
Sorry but that doesn’t work. Just 5% of the community does it and everybody else doesn’t care. Laws need to be passed.
Microplastic is mostly tires and fishing nets so tax those first I think.
Um, aren’t tires like 99.9% rubber?
To all companies
just stop using plastic
To governments:
Plastic tax.
What would you suggest they use instead?
Right? What other possible materials could they use? Prior to plastic, we just cupped our hands and had people pour beverages into them, or directly into our mouths.
Plastics have been revolutionary in keeping our hands and faces from getting sticky. I, for one, refuse to go back to the days of sucking off the tap.
Glass bottles with pop tops
Or cans…
Cans are better but still use a plastic coating of sorts to line the inside
deleted by creator
Hollowed tree trunk
There are a few things they could try. You can get biodegradable bottles, you could use glass or metal, there are cardboard bottles and silicon and even ceramic.
You could also change the way we buy these drinks from bottles we bu and throw away to containers we keep and refill from dispensers. The infrastructure isn’t there for it, but with the amount of money the major drinks companies make its not unreasonable to assume they could afford to implement it.
And arguing that these alternatives are not practical is a wasted effort because an alternative IS needed to stop mass plastic waste and protect the environment so we need to get used to the bar being set at a different height.
I have never seen one of these. Can you not just like, rip it off?
You can, but there’s enough plastic to make it non-trivial, particularly if you don’t want to risk destroying the cap.
They definitely mess with your muscle memory, both when opening it, and drinking from it.
I tried to take them off a few times until I realized it was on purpose and not a manufacturing defect.
The problem isn’t the force it takes to rip it off: that’s easy enough to do. The problem is that the now-free cap has sharp edges that really hurt, and the plastic bottle now has an annoying dangling plastic tail.
You can, but it takes a considerable amount of force.
My stubbornness knows no bounds.
When they first introduced these, my brother thought it was a defect and ripped it off. It leaves a pretty sharp bit of plastic behind and he cut his hand when he screwed the lid back on. I get the idea behind them (it’s so you have to recycle the cap along with the bottle) but there’s got to be a better way than this. It makes it a pain to pour a drink or drink directly from the bottle.
You can still find those pull tabs in the woods sometimes.
Now I unscrew the cap with one hand, but I still have to hold the cap so it’s out of the way.
That shouldn’t be the case. Companies have done some design work and came up with proper solutions, such as the cap snapping into open position, it’ll be completely out of the way provided you turn the bottle the right way. Which actually should work with the one in the picture you posted. Maybe some bottling line somewhere didn’t get the memo, or they’re using up old stock, or whatnot, those that are simply attached but don’t latch are indeed awkward, but that kind of thing should vanish from the market quite quickly especially once tethered caps actually do become mandatory in July.
It’s still a change of habit but you get used to latching very quickly.
Or one could just rip that shit off because one thought it was a shitty manufacturing error.
Op, where are you at? I’ve never seen these OR the aluminum push tabs you mentioned
The push tab is what’s common on aluminum cans for the last several decades. The 70s had the pull tab style cans.
Ok, so "pull tabs"are what you see on like cans of SPAM?
https://i.imgur.com/AZrO380.jpeg
Pull tabs were mostly phased out when I was a kid but these were still around.
I feel like I’ve only ever seen Donald Duck OJ as part of a cheap hotel’s complimentary breakfast! 😆
I remember foil tabs like those on a few things, but I was born a smidge too late for “pop tops,” which pulled off the same way, but were as thick as the to of the can. People supposedly just tossed the little shrapnel pieces everywhere for people to get poked with. Hence the switch to a tab that stayed connected to the can.
I understand that stepping on one could blow out your flip flop.
Sounds like a euphemism.
I remember Jumex always had that foil pull tab.
Huh, I guess these were just a hair before my time
I know UK and Norway are like this.
Just got back from England and Scotland and virtually every plastic bottle had these. It was the first time I’ve ever seen them before too (I live in the US)
EU. They mandated because of some recycling reason that doesn’t make much sense.
I wouldn’t even call this mildly … Anything
It’s shit like this that makes me realise carrying a knife hasn’t lost its utility.
In what way are they better for the environment? I’m confused
Bottle caps stay tethered to the bottles when bottles are taken in for recycling. They don’t end up on the ground.
Which is weird, since I have never seen anyone dispose of a screw-on lid improperly. It‘s always just the caps to glass bottles you see lying around.
Here is what makes no sense to me - if someone throws the caps on the ground, wouldn’t they be less likely to put the bottle in a recycling bin as well?
I’ve never seen this before. I’m not sure how I’d feel about it.
Drink water and beer.
I forgot what the original post was about. I just wanted to concur.
I buy water in glass bottles. They started having these “updated” plastic caps. I burn with rage.
If only there was water coming straight from a pipe into your home…
wtf, my muscle memory is impacted?! fuck the environment! /s
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.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
