Q: Can I opening Bottles, Cans, and Food Packages on Shabbos?
A: To avoid all forbidden activities with opening bottles and cans on Shabbos, it’s preferable to open the bottles and cans when possible before Shabbos.
Opening containers on Shabbos involves several prohibited activities including ripping, making a useful container, finishing a vessel, and erasing letters.
f a container (bag, can, or bottle) is usually reused after having been emptied, it is forbidden to open whether one intends to reuse it. Similarly it is forbidden to open wrappers, bags, and boxes, unless one rips it to the extent that it is unusable afterwards and one is careful about not ripping the letters.
If a container is usually used to keep the original contents after having been opened, but not usually reused, it’s forbidden to open on Shabbos. However, some are lenient if one really intends not to reuse it and one does not make a neat convenient opening.
It is permissible to open a container even if it is usually re-used or at least used to keep the original contents, if at the time of the opening (or beforehand) one ruins the container by perforating the side or bottom so that it could no longer be used.
It is forbidden to take special care to rip a neat hole to be used as a specific opening or to rip open a container along the lines marked for perforation.
It is permissible to rip open a miniature pack of sugar or similar, which is thrown out right after it’s opened. Similarly, one may rip open a candy wrapper, plaster wrapper, plastic or paper seal around wine bottles or jars because these are usually ripped and discarded immediately.
It is permitted to remove the staples from a container stapled shut. Cardboard boxes closed with gummed paper or tape, papers stuck together, or a paper wrapper may be (ripped) opened on Shabbos only if one ruins the box in a way that it’s unusable as a container afterward.
Some poskim forbid using plastic or wire twist ties to close bags unless one plans to undo it within 24 hours. However, others permit. It is preferable to be stringent and to avoid using them if they will remain for more than 24 hours.
Many Ashkenazi poskim hold that one may not open a bottle with a metal cap for the first time on Shabbos because removing the cap separates the ring from the cap and makes the cap into a usable vessel. One may make a hole using a knife in the cap if there aren’t letters or pictures on it so that makes it unfit for a cap afterwards and then one may open the bottle. Even among those who are strict, many permit opening a bottle with a plastic bottle cap because it had the form of a cap before it was ever attached and therefore separating the ring doesn’t create a new utensil. However, some poskim are stringent and say not to open plastic caps either.
Someone who holds that it’s forbidden to open a bottle on Shabbos may not ask another Jew who holds that it’s permissible to open a bottle on Shabbos. However, some say that if one is only strict based on the minhog of his Rabbis or father but does not consider it to be breaking Shabbos, may ask someone who holds it’s permissible to open the bottle for him.
If one opened a can, bag, bottle or other container in a prohibited way, one may still eat the food on Shabbos. The food in the container isn’t muktzeh even if you hold that it is forbidden to open but if it was somehow opened the food is still permitted.