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.
Coca Cola used to use glass bottles, it is a material that is completely recyclable. Why change it?
Better than recyclable, glass is reusable.
You can just send the bottle back to the factory, the factory washes it and refill 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
Except PET from plastics bottles which is the only common plastic that is fully depolymerizable/ repolymerizable, instead of simply being remeltable.
Glass bottles with pop tops
Or cans…
Cans are better but still use a plastic coating of sorts to line the inside
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.
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.
Hollowed tree trunk