Bottled Up

A new trend has emerged in the country where I live. Maybe it has been going on for quite some time elsewhere, but its advent in my neck of the woods is recent.

I am, of course, talking about the sudden (for me at least) prevalence of bottle caps which are attached to the bottle. Milk, juice, pop, energy drinks…all now come with caps which cling to the bottle with a stubborn fortitude.

These fixed bottle caps are designed to make it easier to recycle the bottle. I know this because the caps told me.

The cap reads, ‘‘Attached cap to recycle better’’.

Far be it from me to doubt the methods and intentions of PepsiCo, but that sounds like bull crap.

You shouldn’t be drinking these sugary beverages anyway. I purchased these products for research purposes only.

Being part Irish and part Italian, I’ve inherited the genetic traits that enable a long memory—how else can you bear generational grudges without one?—and I remember the days when we were specifically instructed to remove bottle caps from plastic bottles in order to facilitate the recycling process. Apparently there have been advances in recycling technology and now recycling plants are able to take those erstwhile unrecyclable caps and do whatever it is recycling plants do in order to make plastic reusable.

This about-face and the sudden, ubiquitous appearance of attached bottle caps made me reminisce about what I lazily call The Covid Years: that period of time roughly starting in 2020, reaching it’s dizzying peak of madness in 2021, then at some point in 2022 vanishing slowly and softly like dried dandelion seeds in the wind.