Connect the Cap: A Model Ordinance for Your City

Bottle caps are small, colorful, and buoyant, which makes them among the most common items found on beaches and among the deadliest. Albatross parents skimming the ocean surface mistake floating caps for food and feed them to their chicks. On Midway Atoll, the bodies of young albatross are routinely found filled with caps and other plastic fragments.

The fix is simple: keep the cap attached to the bottle. A tethered cap stays with its container through use, collection, and recycling instead of escaping into storm drains, roadsides, and the sea. The European Union has required tethered caps on single-use beverage bottles since 2024, proving the design is practical at scale. Many bottles sold in the U.S. already use it.

A Ready-to-Use Model Ordinance

City councils don’t have to start from scratch. Our partners at Californians Against Waste have drafted a model local ordinance requiring tethered caps on beverage containers sold within a city’s limits. STAC endorses this approach: ordinances, which carry the force of law, rather than non-binding resolutions.

Download the model ordinance

How to Bring It to Your City

1. Download the model ordinance and review it with local allies.
2. Identify a council member or sustainability commissioner willing to champion it.
3. Build visible public support through petitions, sign-on letters, and public comment. Our Organizer Resources page has step-by-step guides.
4. Contact STAC. We’re glad to share talking points and connect you with other cities working on the same ordinance.

Every city that adopts Connect the Cap sends a signal to beverage makers that tethered caps should be the standard everywhere.