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Coca-Cola Begins Introduction of Attached Caps
- april_22 4y agoWater bottles in Germany also recently started having these attached caps. I think it is a great start yet still way more has to be done. Especially since most countries don't even recycle their bottles and plastic waste still. Doesnt matter if the cap is attached or not if the whole bottle isn't recycled.
- throw__away7391 4y agoI really like the wash/reuse glass bottle systems in Germany and other European countries. In addition to the environmental benefits, the bottles themselves are nicer in my opinion. We used to have similar setups in the US since forever, but they were discontinued with the introduction of disposable plastic bottles.
- Markoff 4y agoThey are also extremely heavy, so they cost more to produce, more to transport and they are nuisance to get home.
- throw__away7391 4y agoMany of my fiends in Germany get them delivered and they take the empty bottles back, others bring them home in crates and similarly just take the crates back to the store when they return. A lot of bottling is done locally (as it is in the US as well actually) so the bottles themselves aren't traveling that far. My impression is that this system works quite well.
- Markoff 4y ago> Many of my fiends in Germany get them delivered and they take the empty bottles back And I assume this is done by charity for free, right? It works well if you don't mind spending lot of extra money for fixing the inconvenience of heavy glass bottles, which is not really solving any problem considering recycling rate in developed (EU) countries especially on plastic bottles. The effect of those few plastic bottles which won't get properly recycled is next to zero compared to other issues (let's look for instance at hypochondriacs using tons of respirators, usually very same people complaining about other people polluting enviroment), I suggest anyone who think glass bottles or plastic bottles with deposit are good ideas in developed EU to visit South East Asia to see how meaningless are these efforts.
- dane-pgp 4y agoBack in June they announced they would use 100% recycled plastic in UK bottles[0], and in October they announced a prototype plant-based plastic bottle[1]. If other companies copy this, we're fast reaching the limits of how sustainable packaging can be (short of reusing your own container, or consuming less). [0] https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/coca-cola-to-use-100-recycled-plastic-in-uk-bottles/ https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/coca-cola-to-use-100-recycl... [1] https://www.coca-colacompany.com/press-releases/coca-cola-unveils-new-prototype-bottle-made-from-100-percent-plant-based-sources https://www.coca-colacompany.com/press-releases/coca-cola-un...
- laverya 4y agoAnd it'll still be worse than the classic, returnable and reused, glass bottles.
- johannes1234321 4y agoThat's not that easy and depends on many factors. Glass bottles are heavy and have to be transported around. If they have to travel "long" distance, between filling, customer, cleaning and refilling it can be better, energy-wise, to use light plastic bottle which is "disposed" properly (maybe burning in power plant) For the local brewery reusable glass bottles usually win, though, on environmental perspective.
- nicoburns 4y agoThe ideal would seem to be to have local bottling plants for everything. It'd be more expensive, but much better for the environment.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoEven better would be to just transport the syrup and the CO2, and combine them with local water at the point of consumption. AKA soda fountains.
- blitzar 4y ago> Bottle caps are often discarded and littered. So the problem is really people are pieces of shit; open the bottle, chuck the cap on the ground and walk on. I guess now at least the cap and the bottle will be discarded together rather than seperately - halving the amount of littering.
- shippintoboston 4y agoAlways blame the individual not the corporation...
- refurb 4y agoFor littering? Absolutely
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- steveBK123 4y agoWhy not allocate blame & cheer to the individual & corporation as appropriate. So in this case.. littering = bad individual, anti-littering product changes = good corporation.
- wongarsu 4y agoThe structural problems that I imagine are at play here: - apparently people buy bottles without the intent of resealing them, maybe offering cups as an alternative would fit them better? - maybe some people litter due to a lack of conveniently accessible bins - maybe littering can be reduced by educational programs - why are people buying cola at all? Drinking from the tap or a drinking fountain would be much more environmentally friendly and healthier. -- Drinking fountains are rare in most countries -- In some countries tap water isn't great for consumption -- Coca Cola spends a lot of money convincing us to buy it -- Sugary drinks have a certain appeal to our senses I probably missed a couple. But while Coca-Cola is responsible for some of them, at least as many of them are about public infrastructure driving the choices of individuals.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
- wafriedemann 4y agoI just recently learned that this attachment is intended. I always thought it was a production flaw.
- coffeeblack 4y agoUnhealthy content wrapped in plastic. But now I can feel good again about consuming it, because “attached cap”. That’s how marketing works.
- chrisseaton 4y ago> Unhealthy content It's just flavoured caffeine water.... just like your user name?
- coffeeblack 4y agoIt’s mostly sugar.
- chrisseaton 4y agoThe coke in the photo is zero sugar, so no it isn't.
- coffeeblack 4y agoTrue, artificial sweetener is just as healthy as apples.
- timbit42 4y agoYou'll probably see this on water bottles as well.
- kennydude 4y agoOr you know glass bottles which can be returned and re-used. Like they used to do. This is just them again pretending to care about the environment
- tokai 4y agoAs can plastic bottles.
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoSure many things can, allow me to ask what percentage of coca-cola bottles are actually using recycled plastic?
- tokai 4y agoAll of them in my country.
- DoingIsLearning 4y agoFirst off that will only happen in countries where the marketing negatives of not using recycled bottles impact sales (note that is not a lot of countries). Second, recycled bottles are not made 100% from recycled plastic. You can tell that claim is misleading because if they were made 100% from recycled plastic they would be near opaque and dark grey rather than the pristine transparency that customers expect. Plastic recycling has a colour/type separation problem. Third unlike glass or aluminium, plastic becomes brittle after a few recycling cycles, so even in a perfect circular economy you would still have to introduce 'new' plastic into these batches. Yes Coca-Cola, Pepsico, Unilever, Nestle, etc. may claim to use recycled plastic but they are not using recycled plastic exclusively and they never will be able, plastic recycling is and always has been a marketing exercise to externalize the cost of plastic from Industry to consumers.
- akmarinov 4y agoBirds don’t eat glass
- 323 4y agoAccording to an eco site this will have some impact, they call it "leash the lid": > 6 Most Common Sources of Plastic Pollution > 1 of 6: Food Wrappers & Containers (31.14% of pollution in environment, by unit count) > 2 of 6: Bottle & Container Caps (15.5%) > Nobody really thinks about caps. Most of the attention when tossing a plastic bottle is on the bottle itself. Caps are terrible for the environment because they float on the surface of water and look like a tasty morsel for birds: “For some species, such as the Pacific Albatross, plastic ingestion is a major factor in their decline and potential extinction.” 5 Gyres believes that policy-makers should implement “leash the lid” rules, requiring manufacturers to attach caps to bottles to prevent their escape and encourage tandem recycling. https://www.treehugger.com/most-common-sources-plastic-pollution-4859259 https://www.treehugger.com/most-common-sources-plastic-pollu...
- m-p-3 4y agoI wish we'd just try to avoid recycling plastic in the first place, and reduce its presence wherever possible. Aluminium and glass are way less harmful to the environment and can be recycled almost infinitely.
- wink 4y agoI can count on one hand when I ever handed a plastic bottle without a cap back to recycling or to the store (we have deposits on everything and the cap is not included). I think the only people I remember tossing them were coworkers on a construction site. I will admit we sometimes took them off to repurpose them, e.g. for mixing colors for painting, but then they were tossed in the normal trash, so this wouldn't change anything. So either this is highly dependent on where you take those numbers or I will call complete bullshit.
- 323 4y agoYou are literally giving anecdotal evidence with N=1. > But the Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawaii (B.E.A.C.H.) found that “plastic bottle caps are one of the top 10 items found during marine debris beach clean-ups and are the second most littered item after cigarette butts.” https://sustainability.weill.cornell.edu/recycling/bottle-caps-and-environment https://sustainability.weill.cornell.edu/recycling/bottle-ca... > The 2017 International Coastal Cleanup, an annual beach cleanup event run by ocean advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, reported that plastic bottle caps were the third most collected item worldwide https://resource.co/article/what-should-you-do-plastic-bottle-caps https://resource.co/article/what-should-you-do-plastic-bottl...
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoRing pull on cans used to detach too. Overall that's been a great improvement, though it had the extra elemt of danger from lacerations.
- lbriner 4y agoI knew plenty of kids who would still pull off the ones that are supposed to stay detached because of the "fuss" of having something near your mouth. I can see this happening with the new design, people won't want to drink with the cap next to their mouth. It would probably cost more but the pull and click lids are better because you don't remove them, you just drink through them. Not sure if these work with soda though without killing all the gas.
- Markoff 4y agoCan someone please link a video how does it work with opening bottle? Can't find it on Youtube.
- timbit42 4y agoThe ring rotates along with the bottle cap while you are opening or closing it.
- abruzzi 4y agoI remember when a simiar thing was done with aluminum soda cans. Old soda cans the top pulled all the way off and people frequently threw them on the ground. To this day I still see old can tops on the ground. This isn't nearly as big a change since bottle tops are resealable so don't get tossed on the ground nearly as much. Some commenters are suggesting a better option is reusable glass bottles, which I wouldn't object to, but are there resealable glass bottles? (honest question, I haven't seen them. Most of my experience with glass bottles are beer bottles with pop off or twist off caps, but cant be resealed.)
- systoll 4y agoThere are – coke even sells them: https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/822719/coca-cola-classic-soft-drink-bottles https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/productdetails/822719/coc...
- abruzzi 4y agothanks. I hadn't seen these--probably not in the US. I do like the idea of reducing waste.
- mikub 4y agoYou can buy those glasbottles again here in germany, I think they reintroduced them two or three years ago, before that I had last seen them around 1995. I don't drink that much coke, but when then I always try to buy those glasbottles, it just tastes so much better.
- lom888 4y agoI recall two-liter resealable glass bottles of Coca-Cola before everything switched to plastic. A quick search shows that these could be returned for a deposit.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Jaruzel 4y agoAre the caps made of the same exact plastic as the bottles? If not, then these become mixed-type-plastic and cannot be recycled by most [UK] authorities.
- yodon 4y agoHas anyone seen stats on what fraction of their source material for the recycled plastic is post-consumer waste vs manufacturing waste?
- rasz 4y ago>circular economy for PET bottles except recycling plastic doesnt happen, its a huge scam