Have you noticed it’s become much more difficult to remove the plastic lids from water and soft drink bottles?

Malta’s two major beverage companies General Soft Drinks (GSD) and Farsons have introduced lids that are tethered to bottles to make it easier for consumers to recycle drinks packaging in its entirety.

Plastic bottle caps are often lost, ending up as litter, particularly on beaches, where they are among the single-use plastics that are most found there and the new design aims to reduce that.

The hinged lids began to be rolled out on bottles of Kristal water in November and on soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Sprite last month, GSD said.

Tethered caps have also been introduced across all beverage products in the Farsons portfolio, which includes Kinnie as well as international products like Pepsi. 

The move pre-empts a European Union directive that comes into effect in July after being approved in 2019.

It requires all beverage producers to design the products in a way that “significantly reduce(s) the dispersal into the environment of beverage container caps and lids made of plastic”.

In a statement, GSD said it had undertaken “a significant capital investment” to make the change and had received no government or EU funding to do so.

“A greater collection of caps contributes to less litter in our environment and a step closer towards a circular system for caps in the long term,” it said.

Farsons deputy chief executive Michael Farrugia said the company embraced and endorsed the EU directive.

And a spokesperson for GSD said the directive is a move that will contribute to better collection of package waste and recycling within the beverage industry.