this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2024
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I work as a bartender in a live music venue in the Netherlands.
We, just like most festivals, used to always remove the caps from the water bottles, citing safety concerns (people would drop the bottle when empty but put the cap on, which is a nasty tripping hazard).
So a company started to make bottlecaps that clip to your pants, and most water vendors used a single size opening, which made this feasible. People held on to their cap, and could pause drinking.
Then water companies started to attach the cap to the bottle, to prevent litter, and the government issuing a mandate requiring us to charge per plastic unit.
So now we leave the caps on, but as guests return about 95% of bottles and cups to the bar (buying a drink without having a cup adds a 1 eur plastic surcharge), the safety hazard is basically gone.
As a bartender, I'd very much prefer bottles of water to cans. It allows guests to drink at their leasure, they're easier to transport and can't cause as much harm as a can (either by throwing or when squeezing it).
They are slightly visually less appealing than a cool can though, I'll give them that.
How does having the cap on change the danger level of the hazard?
the bottle doesn't crush because the air is trapped inside.
Yes and the extremely thin plastic that the bottles are made of these days cracks and lets that air out as soon as force is applied.
Maybe you all drink Dasani exclusively or something, but most bottled water these days comes in plastic that's as thin as tissue paper. I have had that shit crack in my hands.
A bottle full of air rolls when stepped on, with no cap they just squish flat.
[I'm starting to enjoy the response I'm getting to this take. The passion, anger and vitriol directed at me for questioning this shit. It's hilarious, and I just can't help myself... Stepped on an empty water bottle with a cap on today and guess what happened? It was immediately crushed, and I am not a heavy person. Please, tell me again how angry that statement just made you]
I suppose... Have you felt how thin the plastic is on water bottles these days though? I feel like the plastic would give first whether there's a cap on or not. Maybe depends on the person's weight.
Edit: Lol lots of angry folks here. To the person who said I'm ignoring "actual data": what fucking data? Somebody said a thing, and now that's "data"? You've got some actual data about the dangers of stepping on water bottles?
It seems like people are referring to unopened bottles of water. Didn't see anything to indicate that in the original comment, but I guess it makes a little more sense if we're talking about unopened bottles of water. Since we're talking about trash that people throw on the ground, I guess I assumed the bottled was not only opened, but empty. Because it's trash.
That said, I stand by my original comment. Plastic water bottles are made of fucking tissue paper these days. They 100% would snap if someone stepped on an opened/empty bottle.
Plastic bottles are always pressurised at the factory. They can hold shit load of weight when closed, otherwise they would explode during the packaging process.
I guess I was assuming the bottle wasn't sealed shut since we're talking about literal garbage that people throw on the ground.
If it's not sealed then it doesn't matter if the plastic is thinner by a few microns.