Following the bottle-cap madness, I don't think any current data shows the actual issue was resolved. Even worse, the effect on marine life is still not measured, and afaik reduction of harm was the primary goal. Instead of brutally high fines on fishing net waste, we got bottle-cap madness.

We have so much experience with scientific method, yet these massive decisions are adhoc, that's how the whole world works. We never tested what would happen by allowing mass production of plastic, or phones, or whatever, so these antipatches are going by the "feels" as well, with no individual taking responsibility for failures.

A bit off topic, but I recently had a drink that didn't have the attached bottle cap while travelling abroad, and my god, was it a minor annoyance to have to hold the bottle cap in my hand while drinking. I also almost dropped it because I expected it to stay attached. Funny how fast we adapt.

There is monitoring of beach pollution but data publication is typically delayed, like, we know it went down by 30% from 2015-2016 to 2020-2021, we will have data on a regulation that went into force in late 2024 only in a few years.

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