The Untethered Advantage

More than you want to know about tethered caps

We believe that there are two broad types of people when it comes to using water bottles. Those naturally inclined to dispose of both bottle and cap responsibly, in the recycling bin. And those who don't pay any attention to where they discard the cap or bottle. There's probably a significant overlap of these two camps with people who do or don't return supermarket trolleys, but that's a sidenote.

The EU would have us believe that there's a third type of person. Those who carelessly discard their bottle top, but assiduously seek out a recycling bin for the bottle itself. To improve the behaviour of this non-existent cohort Article 6 of Directive (EU) 2019/904 – the Single-Use Plastics Directive – states that single-use beverage containers of up to 3L in size “may be placed on the market only if the [plastic] caps and lids remain attached to the containers during the products' intended use stage.”

Fortunately, EU Law is no longer automatically binding on the UK. Unfortunately, many manufacturers and bottlers have voluntarily adopted the measure. Perhaps they were persuaded by the environmental argument. More likely they prefer not to have to prepare different types of packaging for domestic and export purposes, for operational efficiency and economic reasons.

What is ignored by this universal change is customer preference. There are still over 70% of bottled water consumers who dislike tethered caps (source: packagingeurope.com). Anecdotally, we hear of them being prone to spillage on opening, uncomfortable in use and increasing chances of leakage when reattached. Those who rip them off are left with a plastic spike to avoid.

We think it's time to give choice back to the consumer. Of course we'll never be able to market Untethered UK Water in the EU. And we're fine with that!