![]() In California, all retailers will be prohibited from selling single-use drinks bottles without a tethered cap from 2020 onwards, ensuring that bottle caps do not get separated from the bottles.ĭespite bottle caps representing eight per cent (compared to a global six per cent) of collected waste in the UK at the International Coastal Cleanup, few UK manufacturers have considered California’s solution. Once caps are in the plastic (PET) bottle reprocessor, they will be re-granulated, with the material floated off during the wash process and sold on.īut, perhaps the UK should be aiming for a more straightforward, immediate approach. Leaving the cap on does not have any negative effect on the value offered by bottle reprocessors to suppliers of post‐consumer baled bottle material.’Įssentially, all consumers have to do is empty and flatten their bottles, leaving on the bottle cap, and then dispose of the bottle and cap into the same recycling plastics box. ‘If the cap reaches the bottle reprocessor, they can separate the cap and sell that fraction for recycling. A separated cap will not successfully pass through a sorting facility and will go into a residue fraction for landfill or energy recovery. ‘This approach simplifies the consumer message, removes confusion, and makes it easier for consumers to recycle bottles. This reduces the potential for the cap to be littered separately, and when attached to the bottle it also allows the cap (as well as the attached neck ring) to pass through the sorting facility and get to a plastic bottle reprocessor. ![]() It said: ‘It can be confirmed that plastic caps should be left on plastic bottles for recycling. Yet, the plastic recycling charity Recycling Of Used Plastics Limited (RECOUP), issued a paper in September 2018 putting forward some new information. Made from a different plastic polymer to that of a bottle, the two supposedly couldn’t be recycled together. ![]() In the past, councils have told residents that the detached bottle caps cannot just be thrown loose into the same plastic recycling box as plastic bottles. 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 worldwideīottle caps pose a significant environmental hazard as they are small enough to be ingested by wildlife and also break down into microplastics when left in the environment. They have caused confusion among consumers for as long as plastic bottles have been recyclable, and often end up being thrown in the general waste bin or dropped as litter. ![]() Yet, one aspect of the issues posed by such containers remains relatively unaddressed – plastic bottle caps. However, with proposals to introduce a deposit return scheme for drinks bottles and cans by 2025 and the announcement of a plastics tax for all packaging that contains less than 30 per cent recycled content, disposable beverage containers are under scrutiny like never before, with a range of policy interventions designed to get a handle on the single-use bottle problem. With 13 billion single-use plastic bottles pumped out every year in the UK by a range of household brands – Evian, Nestle and Coca-Cola, to name just a few – the challenge is sizeable. At the end of a year in which the devastating effects of single-use plastic have been brought into sharp relief by popular environmental documentaries Blue Planet II and Drowning in Plastic and a litany of government policies designed to reduce its environmental impact, it is becoming more apparent that the consumers must also play a part in changing our throwaway culture. ![]()
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