Plastic | The new caps on the bottles stick annoyingly in your face – This is how Hartwall responds to criticism

The new ones of the EU according to the plastics directive the caps have received criticism. The new caps are attached to the drink packages, and some people find them unpleasantly hitting the face when drinking.

Lecturer in packaging design at LAB University of Applied Sciences Nora Nylander comment on caps In an interview with HS. He also thinks that the cap hitting the face makes it difficult to drink from the bottle.

Hartwall Manufacturing Supply Chain Manager Tomi Korte haven't read the high profile discussion on social media. However, feedback received directly by the company has been processed.

“It seems that using the new cap requires consumers to get used to it. We have also received questions about why the cap has been renewed. The Plastics Directive is perhaps familiar to everyone.”

According to Kortte, from the consumer's point of view, the good thing about the new cap is that now it can't drop to the ground, but it stays with you all the time. According to his own experience, it is easy to turn aside when pouring a drink into a glass.

“I think that once you get used to the cap, you can live with it,” he says.

in Finland is, according to Kortte, a great recycling system, but the situation is not necessarily the same in all European countries. That's why you should keep in mind what the plastics directive is aiming for and what it can achieve in the big picture, he says.

The development of the cap has not ended. According to Kortte, for example, different options are constantly being sought to reduce the amount of plastic in the cap.

According to him, the opinion of consumers is also taken into account in the development work. On the other hand, at the same time, you have to balance with the requirements of the directive, he states.

When the plastic directive came to the attention of the companies in the Finnish brewing industry in 2019, fears arose in the industry that the amount of plastic should be increased even more and that changes requiring large investments should begin in the production lines.

The caps were developed in cooperation with Hartwall's employees responsible for packaging development, the cap supplier and the machine supplier, says Korte. In the end, the fears that overshadowed the reform turned out to be unfounded.

“The cooperation went well and we are satisfied with the end result. We were able to find a solution that did not require large investments to change the machine lines and that kept the amount of plastic the same as before.”