Have to say I love the drink cap thing. It makes a lot of sense. The caps wind up everywhere so the regulation probably/most likely does some good (have not seen any data so who knows). But once you get used to it you appreciate not being able to lose the cap. Straws seem pretty useless to me in general so why not avoid plastic? but that is probably a me problem. Plastic on fruit is annoying as hell but it is not a mutually exclusive problem.

Don't know where you get your apples but I can buy 1 if I want. Just not at the supermarket since they optimise to sell you more than you need. No regulation involved here.

> It might be that we have a say, but there are a lot of decisions happening in Brussels that it "feels like" we, EU voters, don't have a say in.

Well... your government certainly has a say in Brussels. Often enough, national politicians use "Brussels" as a scapegoat... nothing can happen in Brussels if national governments (or the Commission) don't propose it first, the Parliament has no right to initiative.

If people would stop electing dumb fucks to national governments or to at least hold their dumb fucks in national governments accountable (yes, it is possible, even Hungary managed to do so), you'd get a lot less "Brussels" bullshit.

(And yes, I am aware, this statement is particularly ironic given I'm German and we were utterly infamous for shipping off utter wastes of space to Brussels)

> and in countries with a "green" profiles, such as Netherlands it seems impossible to just buy one or two apples - you have to buy a emplastered six pack of apples (lots of waste if I just wanted one apple).

That's a Dutch specialty. Here in Germany, I can buy single apples, pears, bananas or whatever just fine if I want - although I don't because apples suck.

If I were to guess, it's a logistics thing. Sixpacks of apples are easier to handle and transport than a bunch of loose apples.