Yes that will work. Just like referendums work in the Netherlands for example. 90% the population vote in a referumdum against a particular agreement. The government voted for it anyway and then got rid of referendums.

That's how effective and democratic this all is.

I would prefer to have decentralised government. This centralised rules for millions doesn't work and eventually escalate badly.

Just because we give up our responsibility to electorate in hope that they solve our problems. How could they possibly do that for millions of individuals with different problems and needs?

Sure, I can vote people into office, and after their tenure they disappear. But I can't vote their incompetent arses out of offices or prevent them from ever getting elected again when they display blatant disregard for human rights.

What if people choose their governments over more pressing concerns than $SCARE_QUOTE_PHRASE to defeat $STRAWMAN?

thats about as indirect as it goes

Your vote doesn't matter and most likely wont change anything.

Divide and conquer.

I wish that we had this possibility, but here in France the bad political parties have strong regulatory barriers to prevent independent and need comers to be candidate or have a chance to be president and sometimes parlement members...

Your vote alone doesn't change anything.

The same, it solves a marginal problem (people that throw away on the highway only the plastic caps, and somehow keep separate the bottle), in an absurd way that punishes all the nice users, again, just to solve a small % of very cases.

The guys who somehow enjoy throwing away plastic caps, will likely remove it anyway.

The same with the spying, all users will suffer, but those who want to work around it, will find a way.

The irony is that it makes driving more dangerous now, as you need two hands to drink from a water bottle.

How exactly do bottle caps in the EU end up in marine environments? And if they do that should be pretty easy to fix.

These regulations won’t do anything to stop countries in Asia, Africa and other places from pumping their garbage into rivers and oceans…

To be fair I don’t really mind the bottle caps (unlike the plastic straw ban) but it hardly accomplishes anything beautiful allowing people in the EU to feel better about themselves because they are doing their part (which is possibly actually counterproductive).