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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Sorry but that doesn’t work. Just 5% of the community does it and everybody else doesn’t care. Laws need to be passed.
I wish there was more water sold in those little milk boxes or aluminum cans.
Microplastic is mostly tires and fishing nets so tax those first I think.
Um, aren’t tires like 99.9% rubber?