Corporations are saving the planet!

That's an EU regulation, not a corporate measure. And it has drastically decreased the amount of littered bottle caps, so a good thing.
- Littered bottle caps was a problem? Anyway, I hope they do cigarette filters next.
  
  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.
  
  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.
  
  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)
- I was interested in that whole ecoli eating plastic and producing 95% acetaminophen from it by mass. Maybe we can stop a lot of the plastic from water/soda bottles and just medicate ourselves till our livers shit themselves out our assholes.
  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.
- An EU regulation that was heavily lobbied for by Coca Cola.
  
  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.
  
  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?
  
  Can you show a link that supports that? Because I distinctly recall these companies opposing this measure.
  
  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?
- 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.
  
  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.

I think the cap thing is more about littering because in those countries people litter only the cap for some reason?
- When cleaning up beaches and the like, those caps are the litter they found the most.
  People lost them or didn't bother to pick them up because they are so small. Unlike with the bottles themselves.
  Since they switched to the new caps, the amount of caps found has decreased significantly.
  So yes, they work. It is all based on data.
  
  Ofc it is, but stupid fucks have to complain about mundane shit
  
  Also, the caps separated from the bottle fall through dinky cracks easier, like street drain covers) and get lost easier (or drop out of the bottom of the bin easier, etc.), being attached to the large bottle makes that more difficult to occur.
- Not sure if this applied universally, but I remember for years and years the common knowledge was that plastic caps are unrecyclable for some reason, and there used to be separate bins to toss them at recycling centers. That's no longer the case, so keeping the cap connected to the bottle is one way to demonstrate that they should be recycled together.
  (By "recycled" I mean most likely shipped to Southeast Asia to then most likely just find their way into the ocean)
  
  I think the kind of plastic used in bottles is one of very few that actually are profitable to recycle. PET, I think. This is actually something recycling companies want. Most other plastic is just burned or shipped somewhere.
  
  IIRC the reason most caps used to be unrecyclable (many still are) is that they had a liner in them made of a different material. Because such caps were composite materials (using different types of plastic for the liner and the cap), they would make an impure product if recycled. The same problem applies if the cap and bottle are different types of plastic, which used to be more common.
  
  (By "recycled" I mean most likely shipped to Southeast Asia to then most likely just find their way into the ocean)
  You would be wrong; PET bottles are mostly actually recycled, because it recycles very well (also, why would places go to the effort of setting up a deposit/return scheme for something they aren't actually recycling? Just throw it in the blue bag with all the other plastic that doesn't actually get recycled)
  
  I remember they used to collect bottle caps to donate to charities that used it to make stuff for dogs and stuff
  
  This is why I stopped recycling and put everything in the trash.
  For one I was so sad when I found out what a scam it is that such a small amount of stuff is actually recycled and especially plastic never was actually planned to be recycled.
  Two, I'd rather most of the plastic end up in our own landfill than to be shipped overseas into someone else's or just end up in the ocean. We deserve to poison our own land thanks to our politicians not holding corporations to account.
- The bottle has a deposit on it, the cap doesn't
  
  Not true for most EU countries.

PET bottle recycling is the only part of plastics recycling that actually works. Making sure the bottle caps are also correctly returned to recycling plants is a good goal. Also it makes picking up litter a little easier, because now you only need to pick up one thing instead of two.
Btw, this is why clothing/bags/... made out of recycled plastic bottles is actually a terrible idea, because once the PET is out of the bottle recycling stream it is permanently removed from this recycling loop and new PET needs to be produced to compensate.
- We just need thousands more little steps. It all adds up. Like the whole plastic straws debacle. While mocked, it’s one more little step.
  
  Yeah, the big problem is that each of these steps takes monumental effort while yielding only very little result.
  At the current pace, new areas of plastic waste generation are added much faster than old areas are removed.
  While we were busy banning plastic straws and plastic bags and stuck the cap onto the bottle, the plastic garbage production industry added thousands new types of unrecyclable products.
- while i can appreciate the goal and potential result, those attached caps are terribly impractical, i wish they'd find a better solution
  
  Do you know that these caps can be overextended? They have a second open position, where they are opened at ~180°. At that position they don't flop back closed and are quite well out of the way.

I end up dribbling because the lid gets in my way, but it's fine because I'm helping to offset the pollution caused by a billionaire's private jet.
- If you keep pushing it further open it has a detent that will hold it open far enough that even my big nose won't touch it... It's an amazing design, better than a screw cap in every way. Well, at least the properly designed ones.
  
  Yeah, I know, but that doesn't lend itself to comments that get upvotes, and I'm a slag for it.
  
  Or ... you can just hold the cap to a side instead of directly on your nose ...
  
  That last sentence is pulling a whole lot of weight there, there are so many bad implementations out there it's just stupid.
  Also why the hell does this extend to all bottles, what is the point of a milk carton having this mandatory. (Pure coincidence, but most milk packaging I've come across after the change falls in the 'bad implementation' category)
  
  Sometimes they're harder to close
- I remember when cans used to have tabs that tore off. These were changed to the current model, where the tab stays attached after the can is opened.
  People complained that they couldn't drink properly with the new tab design. I guess they either figured it out, died, started using a glass, or gave up drinks in cans completely, since I haven't heard this complaint in decades.
  Anyway, I hope you figure it out, comrade! Good luck!
- "Hello fellow citizens! Did you know that rich people go everywhere with private jets? Maybe you should just choose the comfortable route, and throw away your cola bottle on the spot."

Even worse, "it's mildly annoying, so I don't wanna!" Ofc would be better if people didn't throw em away at all, But alas

I like the convenience of not losing the cap
- Easier to walk around with an open bottle too since you don't have to hold the cap or put it into your pocket

Attached cap prevents it from becoming a macroplastic

Hahehahahehhahahahahhrha I don’t know what a thing is for
- I know it's supposed to help with recycling, the issue is that it fails to address the core of the problem. Instead of actually doing something about plastic waste, they change the bottle design a little, someone probably makes a shitload of money off that, and everyone is happy, but in reality nothing of substance has actually been done. They offer us these pathetic compromises and we are stupid enough to be satisfied with them.
  
  No it does very much so solve the problem it was meant to solve: to stop caps from becoming litter!
  You must have a very funny life if you find things funny you don’t understand
  
  It's supposed to help with littering, not recycling. And I've never once seen a water bottle company advertise an attached lid as some sort of ground breaking benefit for the environment.
  
  That's not about companies doing something, it's just a new law

Conspiracy theory of mine - I’m European, so not sure if valid for the other side of the pond, but there was a massive campaign here to recycle the bottle caps by donating them for the creation of incubators for premature births. The local authorities placed massive donation boxes shaped like a heart and they were getting filled constantly.
Here’s the theory: When the campaign started getting up to speed, they started attaching the bottle caps to the bottle, because, I strongly believe, that out there, there is an absolute evil cunt who only feels something when a baby dies, so he wants fewer donated caps, because deep inside he knows people don’t care enough to snap the cap off.
- I've seen one if these, so that is what they are for!
- Can incubators not be made out of PET? why not accept and recycle the whole bottle?

If you don't like the new caps then the company that made that bottle screwed up.
- Exactly - some are perfectly fine. The cheap ones are terrible, crossthread too easily, get up in your face, dribble, or all of the above.
  Sports style bottles solved the problem long before standard caps got in the game. They get disposed of together here either way, even if the cap gets yanked off for being stupid.
  I don't understand how they end up separate in disposal in the first place. The whole point is that you can reseal the bottle and move/store it without leaking. If you're not actively using the bottle, it gets resealed to move or store. When you finish the bottle, you probably have the cap still in hand or very close by.
  Tangentially, I'd love to see a Pfand type system here.

Real ones get their micro plastics by chewing on used car tires.

I don't know what % of plastic the cap comprises in a plastic bottle but I bet its double digits. So annoying as it is to use, attaching the cap to the bottle does make sense for recycling. It also lessens litter.
But it needs to be paired up with a deposit refund scheme. Lots of countries do this already and encourages circular economies - the soft drinks companies purchasing recycle material to reuse. I bet those schemes measured a significant jump in recovered plastic when virtually all the caps come back with the bottles.
- Annoying? Am I the only one who thinks it's more convenient? The cap cannot fall, you can open it one handed, you cannot lose the cap...
  
  from what i can tell it's like half a percent of a percent of people who give a singular thought to it beyond "oh they changed it"
- Not only that, but the plastic in the cap is actually made of plastic that is better recyclable than the rest of the bottle.
  
  The cap and the bottle in soft drinks are made of PET. Most deposit schemes will accept plastic (PET), or aluminium and a machine will separate and sort the material into the appropriate bin. Cans get melted down, plastic is stripped, washed, turned into pellets and fed back into hoppers that make new bottles. Because it's all the same plastic material it can be ground up into pellets and fed back into a machine to make new bottles. The biggest issue is probably that caps are usually black, red, blue or whatever so I imagine somewhere in the process the chopped up plastic goes past cameras that sort fragments by colour.

Thanks for explaining, I was worried this was a band aid mesure which didn't solve to root cause. /s
- I was interested in that whole ecoli eating plastic and producing 95% acetaminophen from it by mass. Maybe we can stop a lot of the plastic from water/soda bottles and just medicate ourselves till our livers shit themselves out our assholes.
- The root problem is that plastic can be recycled but many countries to not motivate their populations to recycle, nor their industries to use reusable containers or to purchase recycled materials and create circular economies. In countries that do have deposit return schemes, reuse & recycling rates are far higher. I see attaching the cap to the bottle as way to squeeze a little more % out of those schemes.
  
  while technically true it's not accurate, the real reason to attach the cap is simply that we don't fucking want bottlecaps strewn about everywhere.

Cynicism, on the other hand - that's always good.

I love the smell of an amount of microplastics in my brainmatter that is equal to a plastic teaspoon in the morning. Smells like burnt toast.

I was handed a water bottle the.other day at a volunteer event and was lamenting the fact that in the US, we don't have attached caps. I almost immediately lost mine. It's possible to make them attached, AND not suck.

Simon Clark had a pretty good nuanced video on recycling and goes over plastics recycling in the latter parts of the video https://youtu.be/iOtrvBdRx8I
TL;DW Consider the environmental impact of systems over materials, most plastic doesn’t get recycled but some types of plastic are highly recyclable, existing plastic is undervalued, reduce > reuse > recycle.

On other news, there are biodegradable plastics. We should probably use those more. Sure we'll end up with biodegradable plastic in our bodies but basically it would be inert. PVA, PVOH and CMC for example are inert plastic-like chemicals that can coat stuff in foams. CMC for example makes the clear gel that you put on your hair as well as the gel-like behavior you get from various cosmetics. PVA/PVOH is part of non toxic glue. and what's in those molecules? Just carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, nothing more than what's already in our bodies.

Thanks for the safe microplastics!!!
- it said good, not safe. It will still kill you but in a good way
  
  Killing me softly with this cap.

And they also force people to buy plastic bottles? That is so mean.
- In a lot of places, yes. If that's your only way to get water, you will be getting it from a bottle. Water, you know, is important to day-to-day life.

All EU representants right now 😱😱😱

I just always rip them off.

I rip those off out of spite