For a while now, caps have been attached to our drinking bottles. This is no accident: new European legislation requires it. But why really? There are two sustainable reasons behind it!
Caps fixed on soft drink bottles, a sustainable step
In cooperation with Deposit Money Netherlands
You have probably seen a soft drink cap lying on the street, on the roadside or on the beach. Sometimes one happens to be at your feet and you can easily pick it up and throw it in the bin. This is certainly a good deed, but then the cap is still incinerated in the residual waste and so the recycling opportunity is lost. Unfortunately, this picking up rarely happens and most caps remain lying around in nature. So these caps are a major litter problem. They do not decompose in nature, they eventually disintegrate as microplastics and then enter the food chain via the animals that ingest the pieces of plastic - including in our food! By now attaching the caps to the deposit bottles, the hope is that they are less likely to end up in nature, but stay neatly attached to the bottle and thus stay in the recycling loop of our deposit system.
Fixed cap reduces litter and improves recycling
Keeping that cap on the bottle is also useful to improve plastic recycling. Upon collection, bottle and cap can be separated at once for optimal recycling. Caps and bottles are often made of different types of plastic, each of which has its own recycling process. With proper recycling, a PET bottle can become a PET bottle again, while caps can be well processed into other products, such as pallets or plant pots. As this article is being written, experiments are in full swing to fully recycle caps within the deposit system as well, so that a cap also remains a cap. To be continued!
So: keep that cap on the bottle! By doing so, you will help reduce litter and ensure better recycling of plastic. Check out this article to learn all about recycling a PET bottle and its caps. We figured that out for you too.
See more on Deposit Money Netherlands.
Sources: rijksoverheid.nl. Photo credits: thegreenlist.nl.
