bottle caps in France are designed to stay on, in Canada the bottle caps fall off and pollute the Ocean's
Isn't this the case in all of EU now? The Netherlands has the same. It works well if you know how to do it.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Yes, pretty sure this is EU law now. It occasionally comes up on the German-speaking Internet too. Some people seem to be very bothered by this.
Some implementations of this are shit and get in the way. Most are fine imo
Some people just like to complain. If they’re really bothered by it, they can easily rip it off and screw it back on when they’re done instead of whining about it. The net effect is still positive.
I thought it was annoying at first, but now that I've gotten used to it, it's perfectly OK IMO.
They've also improved the system a little bit compared to the original.
This has been in every European country I've visited (mainly the Nordics).
Same in Sweden and I fucking hate it. Even the milk has this shit. You try and pour the milk and suddenly the thing flaps in front of the stream and milk gets everywhere.
I tear these fuckers off the bottle/carton/package every time, idgaf. I don't lose my caps in the ocean like some idiot. Not that hard to screw it back on.
The first versions were shit and did what you said. They've been improved and now lock back if you pull them back far enough.
Except when the lock fails suddenly and kicks back and sprays milk on all sides of the glass! I'm talking about a recent event. 😭
do they have "don't cry over spilt milk" in swedish?
We do, and I'm doing more cursing than crying. 🤬 It's not just about the milk lol. These things are just annoying in general.
I'm from Canada just visiting France on holidays, we don't have this, our bottle caps fall off
Into the ocean?!?!
80% of the time apparently
...and UK
Yep, we also have them in Italy
They only fall off into the ocean if your some kind of brain damaged slob.
So like, 80% of the consumer base, then. It's already bad if it's only 20% anyway.
Consider how it's one of the most common trash on beaches according to the study they made this decision on, there's enough brain damaged slobs to warrant this
A heap of pollution is 2nd/3rd world. They dont have garbage collections let alone recycling centres. Single use plastics just need to be banned.
They’ve become quite common in the uk over the last year or so too.
I believe it’s intended to make the material easier to process for recycling. Something about very small pieces of plastic (like loose bottle caps) being tough to properly sort at the plant, so they wanted a way for them to stay with the bottle instead.
You guys should rejoin the EU.
We know lol
Get cracking! 🫶
I believe it’s intended to make the material easier to process for recycling.
Not exactly, the reason is that the caps often get thrown everywhere for some reason? So it's to protect the environment from that, and this was the solution EU decided on. I bet UK uses it for compatibility with EU, so "evil" EU is still deciding changes in the UK even though UK is no longer a member.
This is not new. Here's the solution:
I never got the pushback. It makes so much sense and the mild inconvenience opening it is compensated by not having to put the cap down. Change scary I guess
A lot of manufacturers cheap out on the implementation, especially the budget brands from Lidl and Aldi which sometimes leads to the cap not being able to stay on anymore (the milk cartons are especially notorious, they literally break off by just opening them).
So I do get why people get annoyed by it. I also understand that helping the environment is more important so I'm not throwing a hissyfit about it and just tear em off out of spite (I leave them on). But people are still allowed to be annoyed and have an opinion about it.
As someone with hand motor problems, I can tell you it's a non-insignificant setback for me. And I'm not the only one.
I don't mind the cap being captive. Actually, it's even kind of handy when trying to take a swig from a bottle one-handed while riding my bike.
The problem is, the retainer creates friction when unscrewing the cap.
It hangs in the way when you pour from the bottle and closing the lid is much harder
Skill issue
Yeah fuck people with degenerative nerve diseases.
Agreed! Fuck them 👍
I understand the sentiment but that's an extremely small subset of people that are inconvenienced, in exchange for a significant reduction in the plastic littering in rivers, seas and oceans.
It hangs in the way when you pour from the bottle
You're not pulling the cap back away from the opening enough. They lock into place out of the way.
I'm France on holiday, and the bottle caps from where I'm from (Canada) are designed to fall off and polute the oceans.