Europe

I quite like the trend of tethering bottles to their caps, mostly because at my particular stage of pregnancy I have become extremely eager to avoid picking up dropped items. But this positive reaction is far from universal. (“The actual worst thing about modern Britain,” according to one disgruntled drinker.) It didn’t take much work to discover the culprit: EU regulation. Further investigation revealed plenty of juicy details.

Since July 3, all drinks bottles of up to three litres sold in the EU have had to come with caps attached. In theory, Brexit spared Britain from this diktat. In practice, it doesn’t make sense for multinationals to supply different designs within the European market, so Brits get the new caps too. Doesn’t freedom taste sweet?

The basic problem regulators were trying to solve is that whereas discarding a plastic lid on a beach doesn’t cost the person littering, the planet still pays a price. The European Commission estimated that plastic caps and lids represented around 13 per cent of plastic marine litter caught in the nets of fishing vessels between 2011 and 2017.

There have been successful deposit return schemes, which internalise the externality by giving consumers financial incentives to return their rubbish. But retailers squealed to the Commission that a centrally-designed version could have “major economic and operational impacts”. Regulation it was.

When the European Commission unveiled its proposals, drinks makers weren’t exactly fizzing with delight. A report commissioned by Unesda, the European soft drinks association, estimated that the cost of the transition, including all the new equipment required, could be as much as three to nine per cent of the industry’s annual turnover. The new caps might even require more plastic than the old kind.

Still, the regulatory juggernaut trundled on, and the industry got on board. There were squabbles, for example some milk producers argued that because their caps did not have to withstand the pressure of a fizzy drink, they should get their own standard. (They did not get their way.) But ultimately regulators and industry managed to develop new standards in a little over two years.

The July 3 deadline should not have taken anyone by surprise. But although some producers were ready well in advance, others held back so that they could see the response to the first few solutions on the market. Meanwhile some drink makers who had been producing caps in-house decided that they didn’t fancy navigating the new standards themselves, and looked to outsource.

That meant that the months leading up to July saw a rush of demand for new caps at the same time as a huge wrench to supply. Inevitably, there were supply chain bottle necks, which handed more power to cap producers relative to brand-owners. (Over time as more supply comes online that should shift back.)

The common deadline generated headaches, but also some refreshing opportunities. Before the change, innovation was tricky. Brand-owners shopped between producers of standardised bottles and caps to nab the lowest possible price. Demanding an innovation unilaterally would have been off-puttingly expensive, partly because it would have tied them to a particular cap producer.

Once everyone had to change their processes, that old equilibrium broke down. Brian Lodge of the British Plastics Federation says that manufacturers took the opportunity to shorten both the bottle caps and their necks, reducing the amount of plastic in use. Sarah De La Mare of the plastic packaging manufacturer Berry Global Inc says that “the change brought an opportunity to suppliers to optimise their product portfolio”. Some producers, in other words, tried to turn lemons into lemonade.

For everyone irritatedly tugging a new cap off its tethers then smugly tossing it into the recycling bin . . . don’t. Once at a recycling centre, plastic bottles are hurled around in what is in effect a large sieve, with holes to filter out any rubble. When unattached lids fall through those holes, they are usually either burnt or sent to landfill. But if they are physically attached, the lids can be separated after the bottles are ground down and recycled into something else.

Mario Draghi’s recent report on European competitiveness makes this week a fashionable time to lament Brussels’ eagerness to regulate. While this particular regulation seems defensible, part of the problem may be that in isolation this is always the case. At least the drinks industry has moved on, with companies touting the new caps as part of sustainability commitments. I predict that before too long, consumers will move on too.