Grapevine

Why plastic bottles in the EU now have their caps attached

You may have bought a drink recently and noticed something odd: the once removable cap is now tethered to the bottle by a small strip of plastic.

An EU directive was enacted in July, requiring that all single-use bottles have caps that remain attached. This is one of several policies designed to limit the amount of plastic litter—particularly the caps from single-use plastic bottles which are far more likely to find their way into the environment and pose an enormous risk to wildlife.

Manufacturers have included the tether on bottles sold across the European market, including in the UK. It is time everyone got on board. In my opinion, this tiny adjustment is the first effective anti-littering policy that contemporary politics has come up with.

The design of a product affects how readily it becomes litter, and this is especially true for bottle caps. Tethered caps are not easily removed from plastic bottles—they are difficult to throw away even if someone wanted to.

The initiative is modeled on a packaging change in the 1980s. Drink cans used to have a fully detachable pull tab, but being small and useless, these were often discarded when people opened them. Designing a tab that remained attached prevented these sharp hazards from accumulating in the environment, where they could cause injuries.