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.
Attaching the caps to the bottles fixes a problem.
The lost fishing gear is another problem.
Fixing one will not fix the other. Fixing one helps. Fixing both helps more.
So. In Norway we have this great system for returning used bottles for cash. We get 0.2$ for a 0.5 liter bottle. People are returning the bottle with the cap on. Seeing bottle caps laying around isn’t a thing.
Instead of attaching the cap to the bottle. Make a return system for the bottles. People are not systematically seperating the bottle and the cap as the cap keeps the sugary residue left inside the bottle in place instead of in the bag you carry them with to the store for returning them for that sweet cash.
Attaching the cap is a solution looking for a problem.
Having travelled a lot around in Europe I have never seen bottle caps laying the street alone. People throw them together or not at all.
This is bureaucracy time spent on caps instead of actual problems. So they could focus on actual issues instead of this shit. It’s a testament to how they blame every issue on random people instead of the industries inventing new ways to fuck up any ecosystem.
This is classic greenwashing. It’s the smallest possible gesture a soda company can make to show that they “care about the environment” while not making any actual change to be more eco-friendly.
Same thing with those awful paper straws. Are you really asking me to believe that a massive burger chain can neutralize their footprint by giving you a straw that turns soggy in minutes? The straws were never the real problem, but it’s the smallest possible step they can take to seem eco-friendly.
Yes. Deposits for recyclable bottles also fixes a problem. Seems like we are fixing problems all over the place :)
We also have that in Michigan. You still see bottles and cans places. Historically, there have a lot of ‘reward programs’ that incentivised keeping bottle caps separate (either from the company or occasionally locally for reasons). I also distinctly remember it being advertised that bottle needed to be capless for recycling, so we always removed the caps and tossed them. Only recently have I seen verbiage on bottles requesting them to be recycled with caps on, which I usually forget to do because it’s habit to toss the caps.
Cool. The more you know.
Funny how there are such different practices.
They might not get discarded separately, but do they get recycled separately?
I always loosen caps when throwing them in the green bin so the bottles will compress more easily. Others might just throw them in separately or they might even pop off once compacted.
I don’t know how much of a problem having them separated might be (I’m just wondering out loud) but I could see how keeping things together and not having lots of small fiddly bits in mixed loads prior to sorting could be beneficial.
Sounds like it doesn’t take much contamination for recycling companies to redirect whole loads to landfill, so it it helps there it’s good I guess?
But… Squeeze the air out of the bottle and twist the cap back on and it suddenly stays more compressed. Literally sealing the vacuum and the sugar. And the caps are generally the same plastic material.
The issue with recyclers sending batches to landfill is that they are a for profit company so if no one is buy the materials or it’s more costly to process than the final product then it’s just tossed. We avoided that by sending it all wholesale to other countries who realized that it was also cheaper to use raw materials. And they didn’t want our unsorted garbage labeled as recyclables.
This is mostly unnecessary and like swapping to new straw manufacturing or thicker plastic bags to be “reusable” actually more detrimental in the short term or not beneficial in a meaningful way.
Why do i have he impression that problems only get solved if the solution doesn’t damage a specific class of people?
You know what would fix that problem? Not using plastic. It doesn’t actually get recycled no matter what doodad they attach to it.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was some easily-recyclable material that humans have been using since Ancient Rome at least that they used to mass-produce drinks in all the time but don’t anymore?
Another fix for the problem! Lets do them all! Every bit counts :)
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But life isn’t declining due to capitalism. Life is declining due to government interference in the free market.
Take the housing crisis for example. Do you realize how constantly and continually government suppresses new housing construction? It’s ongoing, it’s everywhere. And it’s making all our lives harder, every day.
Can’t afford your insulin injections? Gee it’s too bad we don’t have a free market for insulin, given how easy it is to make a profit on it. Nope, we control that with an iron fist and ensure the supply is tiny.
Is your boss treating you like shit, giving you no respect, and piling new responsibilities on you like there’s no tomorrow? Maybe that has to do with thousands of small businesses being forcibly closed a couple years ago. Just destroyed by the government. Wantonly. For our safety of course. But without any democratic feedback whatsoever, the government just forced these businesses to close.
Now there’s less competition between employers, reducing the degree to which companies have to provide an attractive working environment.
Where capitalism actually operates unhindered, people flourish. The suffering we’re all subjected to is the result of poison injected into our market by the government.
The fuck???
Buddy. No. Just no.
The resistance to building multi-unit housing comes from the neighborhoods themselves. Zoning commissions aren’t made up of wealthy politicians. They’re local. They’re usually also heavily tied to developers who know they can make more money selling single family, detached, housing. Federal regulation banning single family detached housing in densely populated areas would actually increase housing supply.
Then there’s the problem of nobody regulating corporate housing purchases as investments. Or large rental companies colluding on pricing to drive up rates.
All of that is a lack of regulation, not a surplus.
Insulin is not hard to manufacture and the basic generic stuff is very cheap. It’s the designer insulin that’s expensive, and the government is trying to reduce the cost in it’s pro capitalism way.
Small businesses have been getting slaughtered by Walmart for decades. And now you care? Now? No. There’s just no credibility for this. Capitalism is very happy to create monopolies with no oversight. That’s Econ 101, unless you’re at Liberty University.
This reads like a libertarian rant. And all you need to know about libertarianism is it’s backed by the ultra wealthy. They aren’t backing it because they care about you.