How the plastic bottle cap became a parable for the value of EU regulation.
Supporters of deregulation want Europe to be more like the US. But that would serve only American interests.
In July 2024, a European Union law came into force requiring plastic bottle caps to remain attached to their bottles. The regulation was widely mocked by social-media jokesters and Silicon Valley billionaires alike. This, people said, was Brussels at its worst: bureaucrats micromanaging, treating citizens like children who couldn’t be trusted to recycle a cap.
What went almost entirely unreported was the evidence behind it.
