The pop top legend still lives!! Just when I thought people had figured out once and for all this is a UL, along comes another misguided soul asking for pop top donations for their church. I thought about trying to get this person to understand that it makes more sense to recycle the whole freaking can than just the top, but instead decided conserve my energy.
I hear you.
I used to work as a substitute teacher. In the office someone had rigged up a little box specifically for pop tops. No one knew this was a urban legand. Even more disturbing, no one questioned how/why saving pop cans could benefit anyone. Not wanting to look like a know-it-all, I kept my mouth shut.
BTW, the Micky-Mouse-LSD-sticker legand is still going strong too.
Around here (ATL) a lot of school classes collect pop-tops to raise money by recycling. I am told they collect just the pop-tops instead of the entire can because the cans are dirty unless rinsed out which makes the tops easier to deal with.
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Dennis Matheson — tanstaafl@earthlink.net
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Somebody at work wanted them for some organization. Said they were to buy time on kidney machines for orphaned kids.
Aluminum cans were selling for $.45 a lb. at the time.
JACK
Seems like I remember pop tops being used in some sort of cheezy craft item. Maybe the craftsy folks pay a fortune for them. Remember, these are the same folks that buy old saw blades and ostrich egss…
The Trustworthy Troglodyte
Speaking of craftsy folks, do you remember the days when you used to be able to take the removable beer pull tabs and make a chain out of them. In my day (a zillion years ago) that was a pretty cool thing to have as a hat band.
Hatband??? You piker! Now a curtain to separate the kitchen from the living room… THAT was cool.
Ranger Jeff
The Idol of American Youth
<<The pop top legend still lives!! Just when I thought people had figured out once and for all this is a UL, along comes another misguided soul asking for pop top donations for their church.>>
The McDonald’s in Pisgah, OH has a permanent collection box for pop tops. It benefits the Ronald McDonald house. I guess it’s the case of anything is better than nothing. Of course, they’re probably paying the dude more to take the time off to redeem them than they are getting in donations…
Personally, I just put my change in the Ronald McDonald collection basket. It really is a good cause.
JEFF, Jeff, jeff…
As I say this while hiding my head in same, my father (divorced from my mother since I was age four) had BEADS hanging in a doorway. They looked sort of like the colored necklaces you’d get at Marti Gras. He also had blood red long shag carpeting in his living room, one bedroom was painted bright yellow and had a five foot tall decal of Scooby Doo on one wall. “Why?”, you ask? Because it was that way when he bought it! It was still that way when he died a couple of years ago. Imagine how much fun we had making that house ready for resale! Oh, and I forgot to mention the “Earth Tones” in the kitchen. Dark brown counter tops, brown cabinets… you get the picture.
YeeeOuch!!
Enright3
Help! We’re trapped in a 70’s sitcom! Did your dad also don sunglasses and an afro like “Johnny Bravo” aka Greg Brady?
In the appliance business we called those colors “Harvest Gold” or “Avocado Green.” And don’t laugh too hard, because, like bell bottoms, they’re trying to make a come back. RUN FOR THE HILLS!
Feh! to both the pop-top and bead crowds. I know a girl who has a necklace which appears to be made out of a thick metallic cord. On closer examination, however, it is revealed to be millions and millions of little circular orange sequins, being teeny disks with holes in the middle for the cord. Strung densely together, they form a cylinder. It was a souvenir which her mom brought back from Woodstock.
Blessed Be,
Matt McLauchlin
Montreal, Quebec
No, but he did have some really awesome leisure suits!
enright3
I had a friend ask me to remove the tabs from my empty beer can for dialysis time. I told her that was an urban legend.
Boy did my wife bite my head off. It seems that her HS collected tabs about 12 years ago to benefit some nameless child. Also, the snowmobile club near her parents’ home has a can near the door to collect them, giving it further credence. sigh
To top it off, I believe some aluminum company has started to donate money to kidney disease research when people come up to them with a bazillion pull tabs. This is of course for PR. They were probably tired of turning people away then having them blast them for their callousness. (They still would prefer that people turn in the whole can; there’s about 50 times more aluminum in the can [of the same type as in the tab, contrary to the tab-pullers])
In case my wife ever brings up the subject, I have a pile of research about this being an urban legend. And just under that I have divorce papers, 'cuz she’ll be mad at me for “having to be right all the time.”
AWB–you too? I’m still getting grief from my SigOther for debunking both the “Walt Disney Jr/Microsoft” spam-mail scam, and the dead midget in “The Wizard of Oz” legend.
Oh god. My whole childhood HOUSE was those two colors - Harvest Gold in the kitchen, and Avocado Green everywhere else. (Except my room was harvest gold for some reason.) Why would people want to bring them BACK?
Someone should really go over and tell that guy making the chain mail - pop-tops would be a cheap alternative to washers.
I ain’t gonna do it.
I think AWB hit it on the head – the origin (pop tops for dialysis time) is an urban legend. But there are some companies and organizations that have run with that and decided to do nice things with or in exchange for pop tops. This tends to confuse the issue because now sometimes people asking for pop tops are doing it for “real” reasons, while other times they are just falling for an urban legend.
As far as the Mickey Mouse LSD and other work-related ones, see http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v03/n04/index.html for some of my experiences with such legends, both at work and, in one case, one being spread by the local sheriff and local news!
This Snopes Page explains how Reynolds Aluminum, McDonalds, and the Nat’l Kidney Foundation have dealt with this urban legend.
Is this now a “self-fulfilling urban legend”? If so, I’ll go get a JATO rocket, attach it to my car, and plow myself into a mountain. 
At the place where I work (we make temporary tattoos for kids; I add the LSD) we have a pop-top collection but I thought the money went to telephone-slot-HIV-needle-victims. Now I hear that the money goes to the families of those who are foolish enough to flash their headlights at oncoming cars. In my opinion, the alien abductees should get the money.
Let us dispell this UL (Urban Legend) about saving aluminum pop tops by asking the NKF (National Kidney Foundation) …
http://www.kidney.org/general/news/tabsoncans.cfm
NKF Dispels Pull Tabs For Dialysis Time Rumor
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 889-2210
New York, N.Y., June 1, 1998 — A false rumor that has plagued the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and the aluminum industry for decades has recently resurfaced, perhaps fueled by the Internet.
Individuals and groups believe they can donate the pull tabs on aluminum cans in exchange for time on a kidney dialysis machine.
Such a program has never existed through the NKF, nor have there ever been programs through the foundation allowing people to exchange any type of item (box tops, product points, etc.) for time on dialysis.
However, it is important to note that some organizations not affiliated with the NKF do collect pull tabs to help raise funds for various causes.
False rumors about an NKF pull tab program have circulated throughout the country since the early 1970s.
Consequently, churches, community centers, schools and other groups have collected tabs and brought them to the NKF, only to find that they cannot be donated in exchange for a patient’s dialysis time.
“We’ve recently seen a dramatic upswing in calls from people asking where they can exchange the aluminum pull tabs they’ve been collecting,” says NKF Chairman Joe Brand.
“There’s no such thing as a tabs-for-dialysis program. It wouldn’t ever be necessary because Medicare typically pays for 80 percent of the cost of dialysis time, regardless of the age of the patient. Private insurance and state programs usually pay for the remaining 20 percent.”
The NKF encourages people to recycle cans.
Individuals who would like to donate the funds they receive from recycling aluminum items such as beverage cans, pie plates, foil, frozen food, dinner trays, etc., should send a personal check to the NKF at 30 East 33rd Street, New York, N.Y., 10016; 800-622-9010.
Proceeds will be used to fund the foundation’s patient programs, public and professional education, public policy initiatives and research.
The NKF is dedicated to preventing kidney and urinary tract diseases, improving the health and well-being of individuals and families affected by these diseases and increasing the availability of all organs for transplantation.
Terence in Marietta, GA
Be someone’s hero