Littered bottle caps was a problem? Anyway, I hope they do cigarette filters next.
Comment on Corporations are saving the planet!
Pringles@sopuli.xyz 22 hours ago
That’s an EU regulation, not a corporate measure. And it has drastically decreased the amount of littered bottle caps, so a good thing.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
bstix@feddit.dk 6 hours ago
The caps was a problem yes. Not just littering, but also in sorting for recycling, where they’d often end up in the wrong place.
It obviously depends on where and how it’s done, but the thing I’ve heard is that due to (the lack of) weight and size the bottle caps would end up in the paper badges, which would ruin the paper from being recycled. It’s better if it follows the bottle. PET bottles (including caps) are shredded, washed and used for new bottles.
Same thing happened to the pull tabs on aluminium cans. Those used to be separate too.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
I really like the can tabs. The plastic bottle caps annoy me because they make it harder to screw the cap back on. It needs a bit more innovation in my mind.
quoll@lemmy.sdf.org 12 hours ago
That’s an EU regulation, not a corporate measure. And it has drastically decreased the amount of littered bottle caps, so a good thing.
you should only be allowed to buy cigarettes if you can account for all your ciggy butts or pick-up an equal amount.
Nangijala@feddit.dk 7 hours ago
In Australia they have something called “report a tosser” people who are proven to have littered anything from cigarette buds to plastic bottles and more will be fined to hell and back.
JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Imagine the power of combining this tosser initiative with the revenue sharing aspect of New York’s vehicle idling program. Save the planet and get paid all at the same time.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 7 hours ago
Do like Japan with ammunition. You have to turn in your spent cases to buy more.
quoll@lemmy.sdf.org 1 hour ago
exactly where i got the idea :D
anzo@programming.dev 16 hours ago
Those float in the sea, we don’t want that iiuc. Is a different plastic too, way more valuable from a recycling perspective (in Argentina hospitals used to collect caps to melt and make toys for childrens)
froh42@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It works by applied statistics.
When you littered before - with the old cap - you’d have two pieces of plastic, now they are connected and it’s only one piece.
I’m only mildy annoyed by the new lids and got used to them, but it’s the bottle cap regulation is one of those that’s purely better for statistics.
It reduces littering by bottles to around half, just because we count the pieces differently now.
Maybe we should better just start taxing by the amount of plastic used in food packaging, as a lot of the packages get bigger and bigger just to display the contents more visibility.
cley_faye@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It reduces littering by bottles to around half, just because we count the pieces differently now.
Beyond the statistics, collecting bottles seems easier than collecting bottle caps. Since people can’t stop tossing their trash in the street, at least it makes it easier for people that clean up to get them.
arc99@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
In many countries people collect their own bottles because there is a refundable tax on the container. Here in Ireland it’s 15c, i.e. a can of coke might be €1 but you’ll be charged €1.15. So it motivates people to take the empties back to a supermarket and receive a refund chit. It also motivates homeless people to pick up bottles & cans that people toss, so that too.
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
I get what you’re trying to say about homeless people, and there are many people reliant on collecting plastic bottles in Germany too, but motivation in that context sounds a tad off imo
Bruncvik@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
An EU regulation that was heavily lobbied for by Coca Cola.
Allemaniac@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
it costs coca cola more to produce those attached caps than not, are you saying coca cola was pushing for saving the environment? lol
It’s an EU regulation meant to battle bottle caps being a major problem for marine wild life, where bigger sea mammals and fish swallow them and suffocate from it. Why are you lobbying for mega corporations willingly and for free? Did you hit your head as child one time too many?
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Can you show a link that supports that? Because I distinctly recall these companies opposing this measure.
Zezzoz@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
He can’t because it’s not true.
This is a EU regulation and it’s a good one.
Thorry84@feddit.nl 19 hours ago
Really? I never heard that before. What would they care about how their caps are? I can’t see it having any impact on them at all. A lot of people got pissed about it when Coca Cola was one of the first to change the caps in line with the regulation, so if anything it hurt Coca Cola.
Also even though large corporations are almost always totally evil, it’s not impossible for them to do something good as well. Probably not for the right reasons, but still, one thing doesn’t exclude the other.
WhiteRabbit_33@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
It perpetuates the myth of recycling and puts the onus on the consumer and state to recycle instead of the corporations to stop using containers that pollute the environment, will be in the environment for decades without breaking down, and is likely causing yet unknown harm in our bodies since plastic is inside all of us now.
The first of the “3 R’s” is reduce but instead of that being the focus because it hurts their bottom line, they prop up recycling and sell the lie that we can keep living as is if we just recycle more and get better at recycling.
Bruncvik@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
No idea why they’d want those tethered caps. My speculation (and that’s 100% unfounded, so take it as you will) is that they are lobbying for something simple and cheap (tethered caps, plastic straws, etc), to blind people from the real environmental issues that are far more costly to tackle. Kind of like the plastic recycle logo, which is a total scam, but makes people feel good enough to not further question the big corps’ recycling practices.
blarghly@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
My guess - somebody at coca-cola figured out the cap attachment system and they patented it, but had no real plan. Then someone had the idea to lobby the EU to make it a requirement. They can sell it because it will reduce litter to some extent and improve the beverage industry’s reputation. But more importantly, coca-cola not already has their manufacturing systems in place to produce these bottle caps. Other bottle manufacturers must now play catch up, constraining the supply of bottles available for EU beverage sales. Now their competitors are scrambling to update their own bottles, which will increase their costs and might delay shipments, lending coca-cola market share. And smaller competitors who outsource their bottling might be forced out of the market entirely if the company they contract with to manufacture their bottles can’t or won’t comply with this regulation.
wpb@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
The only thing I can find in this direction is a letter from beverage companies (including coca cola) opposing these measures. But that’s based on a very shallow google search, so take it with a grain of salt. Where can I find info about what coca cola lobbied for or against?
arc99@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Also it means recycle schemes get a % boost because a lot more bottles come back for recycling with their caps. I wouldn’t be surprised if the cap is 10-20% of the total plastic in a bottle so caps were missing then that’s wasted opportunity.
I remember as a kid when ring pulls on case used to detach and that’s the same thing too. I remember my dad metal detecting on the beach and he’d recover dozens of ringpulls because people just tossed them.