You’re right, I misremembered It’s not just about breaking the seal on the cap, the mere friction of the cap on the bottle adds the bulk of microplastics found within

I was thinking of an article from years ago where they were talking about macro plastics nearly visible to the eye getting into the liquid from breaking the seal. Can’t seem to find it now though

Yes but to a much lesser extent. The act of merely breaking the seal on the cap injects a lot of plastic into the liquid, so skipping that has to count for something