| So this is related to EU Directive 2019/904: """
The EU states, “beverage containers that are single-use plastic products should only be allowed to be placed on the market if they fulfil specific product design requirements that significantly reduce the dispersal into the environment of beverage container caps and lids made of plastic.” Article 6 of the directive gives a more detailed insight. According to this article, caps and lids made out of plastic may be placed on the market only if the caps and lids remain attached to the containers during the products’ intended use stage. Tethered caps will become mandatory in the EU in July 2024.
""" Why is this a thing? Because plastic lids are made of a harder plastic that doesn't degrade as quickly and is much less recycled than the bottles themselves. How prevalent is this? In the last 30 years 20 million bottle caps have been found on beaches alone in Europe during clean-up work. They are in the top 5 ocean trash items that ultimately kill wildlife. This is only a small snapshot of the ultimate number of bottle caps not recycled aside their bottles. To fix this, the EU suggest tethering the lid to the bottle so they're less easily lost and more likely to be recycled properly. 20 companies are responsible for the majority of throwaway plastics in the world, so this change is required in only a few places but could have a large net-benefit. Ultimately this is something that can only come from top-down optimization - why? Because it increases costs for each bottle. > This new bottle cap design requirement must have created a new economy for producing these bottle caps for all of the containers, someone profited. Companies lost money from this and tried to lobby to avoid it by trying ideas first, and then tethering if those failed. > There are massive problems around waste that no one there dares to approach, so they make these weird directives that just smell of corruption and incompetence. Why can't we tackle the small and the large? > Many cities, to avoid fines, provide separate containers, but in the end just throw everything on the same pile. Depends on the city/country, but the primary issue with lids is wildlife harm in my opinion so this does fix that issue. |