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.
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.
What other materials? Aluminium cans, glass bottles, or the bleached skulls of thine enemies!
Coca Cola used to use glass bottles, it is a material that is completely recyclable. Why change it?
Because recycling glass is more expensive than not recycling plastic.
Plastic is recycleable aswell. In Finland like 98% of plastic bottles are returned to the stores and new bottles are made of them. Glass is heavy and fragile and I don’t remember ever seeing a glass bottle that’s bigger than half litre or one that you can put the cap back on.
Replaceable caps definitely exist, they are common on glass soft drink bottles where I am. They look just like the plastic lids but in thin sheet metal, complete with perforations and ring.
Some of the screwtop beer bottle style reseal pretty well too.
Glass is infinitely recyclable though, plastic deteriorates regularly overtime
Glass weight quite a lot which might make them worse for their transport 🤷
It’s also obviously more expensive for everyone.
Except PET from plastics bottles which is the only common plastic that is fully depolymerizable/ repolymerizable, instead of simply being remeltable.
Not to worry. One can cork their bottle for all the sanitary and convenience benefits of keeping a variety of corks lying around and definitely not breeding bacteria in them.
Better than recyclable, glass is reusable.
You can just send the bottle back to the factory, the factory washes it and refill it.
Sucking off the tap in winter when the water is crisp af is amazing.
Glass bottles are fun, I remember when beer mostly came in glass bottles. Glass shards everywhere and the metal caps being everywhere. Such a nice solution.
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 buy 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.
If you mean biodegradable plastic then you should look into it, its micro plastic mixed with a biodegradable fibre so end result is we’re still left with micro plastic.
but every other suggestion is top tier!
I love glass and choose it over plastic every time, but there is the argument that using glass causes more CO2 emissions because of the extra weight.
You mean the thing EU is about to do right now?
I believe so, yes.
Glass bottles with pop tops
Or cans…
Cans are better but still use a plastic coating of sorts to line the inside
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Seems like that’s a very commonly known fact since it’s been repeated ad nauseum. What seems to be completely missed is that compared to plastic bottles is something like 95% less plastic (probably even less actually). Also the liner can be easily separated from the metal when it’s time to recycling the can while during the meltdown process.
Yeah I made the comment before seeing all those. Which is why I deleted it shortly after posting it. Is it still showing up?
It may or may not… Federation being the removed that it can be. Also, doesn’t help I’m an admin of my instance, so things tend to still show up anyway because “moderation”.
Also the comment was in the email notification I get regardless.
But it looks deleted on my instance at this point. Still worth addressing the other points that I brought up. Reduction of plastic by 90+% is still a very very useful thing, especially when it doesn’t particularly… or at worse minimally… hinder recovery of the metal materials during recycling.
Edit: Just like veganism… mandating people to eat no meat doesn’t need to be the end result… If everyone just changed out a couple of meat meals a week with vegetarian options. Collectively we can make a MASSIVE difference.
But in this case cans being so common anyway… This is massively worse because that just means bottles are fucking useless from the get-go. My house buys cans whenever possible. (honestly we mostly drink just water anyway.)
Yeah I don’t disagree, cans would be better than bottles. I just wanted to point out that plastic is ubiquitous and shows up in a lot of places you don’t expect. It’s extremely difficult to completely eliminate it. I’m not arguing that progress toward that goal is pointless, just that the goalpost is a lot further away than you might expect.
Hollowed tree trunk