The bottle top directive, was it not adopted here after we left the EU?
I would also like to mention of how regulations especially impinge on old people. If you lack strength or have arthritic hands modern packaging is a nightmare. But no account of this is taken when designing these measures. Age discrimination? Oops, another regulation.
It isn't the law in the EU but because of economies of scale, most manufacturers find it easier to attach the bottle caps in all they European plants. You can still find some companies that don't, e.g. Harrogate Water.
Things which might appear trivial and absurd in themselves are generally symptomatic of a much deeper malaise underneath. They are the tip of the regulatory iceberg. If we peel away the most ludicrous items at the top we can then expose the next layer of interventionist lunacy underneath. That’s another reason why these things do matter and we are right to make a fuss.
I have another gripe with these plastic bottle tops. As a public spirited sort of chap I go litter picking several times a week; gets me out of the house and off X! To maximise the space in my litter bag I crush tin cans and plastic bottles underfoot before picking them up with my trusty picker. But if the caps are screwed on, which 80% of the time they are, I have to pick them up with my hands first, which I’d rather avoid for obvious reasons, to remove the cap and pour away any remaining content to allow crushing. This adds time and is potentially unhygienic. I bet the authors of the stupid law didn’t think of that!
"It is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.... Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately.
It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will."
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, V. II, 1840
". . . It only takes a second to accept the cookies! JUST ACCEPT THE DAMN COOKIES!!”
No way! I regard cookies as another interference in my right to a peaceful life. What I want is to be able to set a universal verdict and never have the stupid question and time-wasting again.
The insidious thing about bureaucracy is that it often proceeds in small steps, each one apparently rational and justified, yet after a sufficiently large number of these steps, the result is absurdity. The freedoms we enjoy are no longer our birthright, but those we are allowed to have.
The bottle top directive, was it not adopted here after we left the EU?
I would also like to mention of how regulations especially impinge on old people. If you lack strength or have arthritic hands modern packaging is a nightmare. But no account of this is taken when designing these measures. Age discrimination? Oops, another regulation.
It isn't the law in the EU but because of economies of scale, most manufacturers find it easier to attach the bottle caps in all they European plants. You can still find some companies that don't, e.g. Harrogate Water.
Things which might appear trivial and absurd in themselves are generally symptomatic of a much deeper malaise underneath. They are the tip of the regulatory iceberg. If we peel away the most ludicrous items at the top we can then expose the next layer of interventionist lunacy underneath. That’s another reason why these things do matter and we are right to make a fuss.
I have another gripe with these plastic bottle tops. As a public spirited sort of chap I go litter picking several times a week; gets me out of the house and off X! To maximise the space in my litter bag I crush tin cans and plastic bottles underfoot before picking them up with my trusty picker. But if the caps are screwed on, which 80% of the time they are, I have to pick them up with my hands first, which I’d rather avoid for obvious reasons, to remove the cap and pour away any remaining content to allow crushing. This adds time and is potentially unhygienic. I bet the authors of the stupid law didn’t think of that!
"It is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life.... Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately.
It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will."
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, V. II, 1840
Relabel the minor irritations as "micro aggressions" and see if the penny drops.
". . . It only takes a second to accept the cookies! JUST ACCEPT THE DAMN COOKIES!!”
No way! I regard cookies as another interference in my right to a peaceful life. What I want is to be able to set a universal verdict and never have the stupid question and time-wasting again.
The insidious thing about bureaucracy is that it often proceeds in small steps, each one apparently rational and justified, yet after a sufficiently large number of these steps, the result is absurdity. The freedoms we enjoy are no longer our birthright, but those we are allowed to have.