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.

  • @[email protected]
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    479 months ago

    I’m convinced those do very little for the environment. There was some really smart executive at the plastic bottle company who made this up so they can charge more from beverage companies.

    • @[email protected]
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      99 months ago

      Even better. All the bottling and filling machine manufacturers could sell expensive upgrade packages for the beverage companies to even be able to work with the new caps. In our case we even had to completely retire two older machines because there are incompatible and buy new ones. Great for the environment for sure.

    • @[email protected]
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      69 months ago

      They are making a ton of similar laws already. So the bottle caps alone might not do that much but those all laws combined are doing a lot

      • Flying Squid
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        79 months ago

        Unless we remove plastic from the environment entirely, this is the smallest band-aid available on a massive gushing chest wound.

        • @[email protected]
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          9 months ago

          Yup. This is the last vestiges of the diminishing returns of the doomed strategy of blaming consumers for climate change.

        • @[email protected]
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          29 months ago

          Whaaat? Nooo. Remember that time we banned straws and it was gonna be the big push we needed to start real change but then everyone just predictably patted themselves on the back and did basically nothing ever again? 😀