When were pull-tops (2nd photo) discontinued in the U.S. for soda and beer cans? Which company was the last to use them? Was the reason for discontinuing them environmental (because people just threw them on the ground)? Safety (as implied in the song, people could be cut by them)? Something else? When was the last time you saw one? (ISTR seeing one imbedded in asphalt within the past year.)
I haven’t seen one since probably…the late 70’s? And yeah, people used to just rip them off - especially at the beach it seemed - and think nothing of it. I remember cutting myself on them a few times as a kid.
I can imagine the can manufacturers doing away with them simply because there wasn’t any reason to be tossing 1% of the can away. Better to have an opening that stays with the can so that when it is eventually recycled, the maximum amount of metal can be recovered.
wiki: “Pull-tabs were a common form of litter. Some users dropped the aluminum tab into the can and occasionally swallowed the sharp-edged tab by accident. Stay tabs (also called colon tabs) were invented by Daniel F. Cudzik of Reynolds Metals in Richmond, Virginia in 1975 [1] [2], partly to prevent the injuries caused by removable tabs. In this can model described in U.S. Patent No. 3,967,752,[3] the lid contains a scored region and a pull-tab that can be leveraged to open the hole by pushing the scored region into the can. Stay tabs almost completely replaced pull-tabs in many parts of the world by the early 1980s, though pull-tabs are still common in places such as China and the Middle East.”
Related question: When did cans requiring a church key disappear? We had pop-tops when I was a kid, and I don’t think I ever saw a soda or beer can that required a church key. (Quart cans of juice needed them, and still do. But I’m talking about single-serve beverages.)
Early episodes of All in the Family showed Archie drinking beer that required a church key. Early 70’s maybe?
DrDeth: Yup - the pull tabs are still used all over the Gulf. I have not seen a Stay-tab in the Mid East yet.
I first saw the colon type Coors cans in the summer of 1976.
That doesn’t sound very appetizing.
I came across one last year. I found it partially buried on a little-used path in a local Forest Preserve.
As far as the danger of them, I was terrified as a kid by an episode of Emergency where a guy was choking on a pull tab he dropped in his beer or Coke. Suffice it to say, this kid never dropped a pop top in his Coke any more.
What I’d like to know is, why did they discontinue the ‘push-button’ ones? (They’re named that way in the linked photos.)
I’ve wondered that myself. The only place I’ve ever seen them was in Oregon in the mid-'70s. I’m guessing that it’s because you have to do two operations – pushing one in and then the other. (I remember there were plastic ‘lids’ you could buy that would open both holes at the same time.) I liked the ‘push-button’ cans because I felt the soda flowed better with the separate vent.
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Duplicate post. Sorry.
I must have missed that episode of Emergency, because part of my Coke (classic, not nose candy) habit was dropping the pull tab into the can and clinking it around while I drank.
I’m trying to remember when I stopped getting them on Coke cans. It must have been the very late 70s or very early 80s. All I remember is missing being able to clink the tab around.
Did you 'Merikans have the smaller steel pop cans? I think they were 341 mL or even 281 mL as opposed to 355 mL. Some time in the early nineties they were replaced by the 355-mL (12 US fluid ounces?) aluminim cans in Southern Ontario. I remember admiring how the aluminim can stepped outwards in diameter from the same size top and gave us more Pepsi!
In the early seventies, they were in use here. As a pre-teen, I used to help a lady who cleaned houses. Some of the houses we did were rented to college students. The students used to make chains by looping the loop end back into the ring end of the pop-tops. I remember one door curtain made of the things.
They are ground into the dirt here in many places - leftovers from bygone days. Usually any urban center will have them - you can scuff up the ground and find them. Even on country roads they are kind of buried in the gravel layers.
Just because I had to find it (and you knew some reference would be on the intarwebs): http://www.emergencyfans.com/episodes/election.htm
Because of the very short time frame pull-tabs were popular, they will likely be very valuable to future archaeologists in dating strata. I recall hearing of someone using them to data a particular layer of sediment in an environmental study.
Remember when the ring would break off in mid pull, then you had a razor sharp piece of metal sticking up on the top of the can. You had a real dilemma because you could not pull it off with you fingers and to was too sharp to drink from. The method that worked best was to use pliers to pull of the tab.