I noticed the pop-top collection article was 20 years old.
(http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_077.html)
Sometime between the 80’s and now, the aluminum industry must have just thrown up its hands and sighed.
My daughter’s school and many others collect pop-top tabs for Ronald McDonald house. That charity has, I guess, made lemonade out of an urban legend, or something. I wouldn’t be surprised if other charities had done the same.
http://www.rmhc.org/content/rmhc/index/programs/ronald_mcdonald_house/pop_tab_collection.html
Regards,
Barbara G.
Yes… you are quite right… the urban legend has become reality in many different ways. In Ontario, the big one is pop tabs for wheelchairs (and yes… the company only recycles the tabs, not the cans themselves).
Here’s a few random urls for info:
guidezone.e-guiding.com/jmpoptabs.htm
http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/story/mb_tabs20040526.html
http://www.wastemanagement.uwaterloo.ca/otherrecyclables.htm
In a building I go to occasionally, they have one of those Ronald McDonald house tab-collecting boxes sitting on a shelf in a hall. It looks so lonely. I find myself wondering if the money they make collecting the tabs is even enough to pay for making the boxes, let alone the cost of the people (person?) who manage the project.
It’s a case of an Urban Legend coming to life, or rather, real people taking advantage of others’ belief in the legend to do good.
The ancient story that I know of, no doubt related to the “Tabs for Wheelchairs” program that henkelman alluded to, has as its basis an effort by the Elora branch of the Royal Canadian Legion; it’s the same Alcan processing facility in Guelph.
You can read more about it here.
Well Reynolds hasn’t convinced the Shriners to save the whole can. According to thier website http://www.town.billerica.ma.us/cities/billericama/docs/UploadedPages/pulltabshriner.htm
"Why collect the pull-tabs and not the entire can?
It is aluminum that has recycle value and the tab is the only pure aluminum part of the can. The can itself can by returned for the deposit (in States that have can and bottle deposit laws) after the tab has been removed."
Around here it’s the plastic security rings on drink tops. I know of several schools that have the students collect these for some project or other… The stated reason is to “foster a sense of civic responsibility” and similar phrases.
I know the person who is charge of getting rid of them after they are collected at one local school. The normal recycling centres for plastics are most unenthusiatic, and at least several collections were just dumped. They would much rather have the whole bottle, or least the whole lid - easier to sort into the different plastic types. The schools don’t want to collect these though, too bulky and a lot less clean. It’s much more important to be seen to be contributing to PC causes than to actually do so.
DancingFool
I’ve heard this about the tabs being “the only pure aluminum” part of the can before and have always had my doubts, at least when it comes to metal content. According to Wikipedia (apply normal caveats here) the can is made up of 98% aluminum and 2% manganese and magnesium. According to Wikipedia, “The pull tab is made of a similar alloy.”
In smelting the recycled metal, the little bit of impurities can easily be removed and should not constitute a problem any more than the paint on the side of the can or residual pop. I suspect there are two real reasons why tabs are preferred. They compact much denser than even crushed cans and don’t have leaky, sticky residual pop that will also attract ants, etc.
I used to help with donating tabs until I realized, as indicated in the original report, that I was expending more effort or money to gather them and get them to McDonald’s than the tabs were worth. Now I let it suffice to keep the tabs with my recycled cans for my city to reap the benefits and donate money to various causes.