From July, caps on plastic drink bottles must remain attached to the bottle (a design known as "tethered caps") after opening, in line with an EU directive.

While firms have had years to transition to the directive, whose provisions are mandatory from July, according to Martin Pärn, senior researcher and designer at Tallinn University of Technology, designs have often proved flawed.

"The best type of bottle cap design would be one that consumers don't notice there was ever an issue with. After all, people aren't buying the cap; they're buying juice, water, soda," Pärn said.

Jaanus Vihand, CEO of A Le Coq, a major drinks producer in Estonia, told AK: "We produce about 45 million capped products annually."

"Considering the additional plastic, our caps now use about seven more tons of plastic per year. We wanted to improve things, but it turned out as usual. From an environmental conservation standpoint, this is the diametric opposite of what should be happening," Vihand added.

Consumers who AK spoke to also said they found the new tethered caps difficult to use.

One, Oleg, said: "It's not convenient. When you're sitting in a car, you have to use both hands to close it," adding that he simply breaks the cap off if it annoys him.

Kairit said: "I don't believe this small cap attachment makes much of a difference to the environment. It mostly bothers me when I'm pouring the drink; the cap is always in the way."

If the cap is attached to the bottle, a greater volume should theoretically be recycled, since up to now plastic bottle have been taken to recycling points minus their caps – raising concerns about how the caps do get disposed of, and the danger they can present to wildlife if carelessly discarded.

On the other hand, some bottles already had the cap affixed to the bottle ahead of the directive.

Recyclers Pandipakend told AK it has not noticed any difference so far.

The company's CEO, Kaupo Karba, said: "Even before this requirement was implemented, bottles had caps attached. Of course, some packaging is without caps, and consumers today simply tear the cap off and do whatever they want with it."

It is up to individual manufacturers exactly what the mechanism for tethering the cap to the bottle might be.

Instead of adopting what they see as a pointless directive for Estonia, beverage manufacturers in Estonia believe it should be vice versa, ie. the rest of the world needs a packaging collection system similar to that in Estonia.

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