On a recent flight, I noticed this little pile of pull tabs from soda cans on a napkin in the galley. I asked what they were for and was told that one of the flight attendants was collecting them to help people get free kidney dialysis. A well-meaning act for sure, but also pretty much pointless. Those pull tabs aren't worth more than their weight for recycling. And according to Snopes, "a million pull tabs have a recycle value of about $366." That means the dozen or so in the photo have a value of less than 1/2 of one penny. These kinds of "redemption rumors" have been going around since the 1950s. Forwarding urban legend emails is one thing (and an annoying one, at that), but I was surprised to see someone physically acting on such an oldie. More info on the pull tab redemption rumor at The Straight Dope and Snopes.
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I've discussed the very same thing with my mom, as she does it to. As it happens, the Canadian Legion just gives money to charity based on the number of pulltabs they collect. It's a way of capping the donations they make, while also turning into an entertaining competition. It could just as easily be postage stamps or beer bottle caps or any other small, common object
So it's arbitrary, and based on a misconception, but charities have piggy-backed on it so nowthere's a reason too.
The Ronald McDonald House will accept them, but they really don't get that much for them. Despite that, someone at my work put out a can for collecting them.
I've never heard of the dialysis thing, but businesses all over my hometown collect them so they can be melted down for wheelchairs.
*shrugs*
my roommate collects them. apparently her boyfriend's mother works in a hospital and they collect them there.. so I'm not sure if the hospital is just getting on the bandwagon or not..
sort of a self fulfilling urban legend thing i think.
There really is no hope, then. Is there?
I know that Hershey Medical Center collects them for the Ronald Mcdonald house, as well as all the Central PA Blood Banks. I collect them, as well as a few friends/relatives and I give them to Hershey Med whenever I go there.
There is one in my other office building - I want to say March of Dimes or a similar organization.
What I don't understand is why pulling the tab off and (presumably) throwing away the can makes sense to anyone. My personal theory is that if they were going to be recycled, this would provide the least amount of mess from liquid left in the cans and would compact the most since there isn't nearly as much dead space.
here is the NKF's response to the rumor:
NKF Dispels Pull Tabs For Dialysis Time Rumor
New York, NY
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; 1-800-622-9010. 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.
At my office someone put out a plastic container to collect these, and it always has a handful of tabs in it.
The fact is, even if this was 100% true, handling all those tabs in order to realize the recycling value would be more expensive to move and process than simply giving cash to your local kidney org.
Like food banks, I'm sure they would rather you just gave them money.
this does not make any sense to me. why not recycle the whole can?
#3, same here with the donation can. If they were going to collect aluminum, you'd think the whole can would be a better deal. Kind of strange that it's come up again as the value of recyclables declines.
The sanitary comment made in the article is an accurate one. You can keep a garbage bag of pull tabs indefinitely without worrying about bugs, other pests or smells. While the amount that you get from recycling them is small it is still something. And in a state like NY, the consumer can still return the tabless can for a deposit and donate the tab to a good cause.
While the "Pull Tabs for Dialysis" legend may not be accurate charities like the Ronald McDonald House do receive benefits from them.
Try telling someone who's collecting pop tabs that it's a legend and they'll jump down your throat. Even if you show them the proof. ESPECIALLY if you show them the proof.
People like to feel good about themselves, especially if it costs them very little effort. It makes them feel superior to other people, and as though their meaningless lives actually make a difference - without actually going to the trouble of volunteering or contributing or doing anything else that actually DOES make a difference, of course.
They'd rather believe the lie.
I take the positive angle from AIRSHIP's post @12. Whether they accept what the tabs are really being used for or not, there ARE organizations that collect them in order to cap their charitable donations (as somebody else said already). I personally have just gotten in the habit of always collecting them so that when one I happen to hear of one of those drives, I have a whole lot saved up.
It makes them feel superior to other people, and as though their meaningless lives actually make a difference
God, I know. I hate people like that.
The Ronald McDonald house is a good program. The pull tabs raise awareness. The income is nominal but the cash donations that often accompany the tabs is substantial.
Don't dismiss the need. It is real.
the real problem is people still drink pop, eew.
Pop? I think I see a fellow Midwesterner...
@#4
Yep, people collect those so they could be melted for wheelchairs over here too. I always thought that you would need a ****load of tabs to even just build a wheel rim...
I recall once at a RV park when I was a youngster, there was a can for collecting these things for some charity and I was confused as you all were now. I happened to collect cans myself (I once got a t-shirt for collecting over 50 lbs.!) and didn't understand the economics. However, I started collecting just the pull tabs from then on only to throw them out when I could not find another place to "donate" them.
The idea is to bring awareness to the cause the collection is associated with.
Let these images speak for themselves:
that's a lot of pull tabs!:
http://pinconcepts.com/conventions/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/pulltabs1.jpg
you can actually receive a certificate for collecting these:
http://kytech.ky.gov/6202%20Ronald_McDonald_Pull_Tabs.jpg
Straight from the mothership:
http://www.rmhc.com/how-you-can-help/other-ways-to-get-involved/pop-tab-collections/
At worst it cuts down on litter. What's not to like?
Apparently I'm a sucker. Now what do I do with the huge zip lock bag of pull tabs sitting on my counter? On the bright side, I will no longer have that eyesore sitting out.
Here's the link for Ronald McDonald House. My corporate HQ has bowls in the break room for collecting these tabs supposedly for this cause...
https://www.ronaldmcdonaldhousehouston.org/HowToHelp/PullTabProgram.htm
Thank you for exposing this myth to a greater reading audience. I've been fighting this for a while. I've heard everything from "the tabs are a special kind of metal" to "its corporate funds matching". All bunk.
#18 POSTED BY BUDDY66
I collect bottle caps on my own. Every time I drink something that has a nice bottle cap I toss it in a can.
But I'm not pretending what I am doing has some "Greater good..." It's just my odd hobby and I don't pull other people into this...
The mentality between these "Collect [xxx] for [yyy] scams..." is really the same as pyramid schemes. You must do this thing because it's "good" and will "help" people.
The reality is that what most people do to "help" others (like this kind of nonsense) helps nobody. I'm sure there's someone out there who logically thinks they shouldn't make a donation to a local charity because they already "did" something.
It's like "The Huger Site." Clicking on a link is a load of crap. If you really want to help people actually DO SOMETHING.
I actually have two PhD "geniuses" in my family who forward stupid chain e-mails all the time because they push the right buttons. Try to explain to them why it's wrong or point them to Snopes, and they don't believe it. Nobody else in the family has PhD's and nobody else wastes time forwarding these false e-mails.
You want to help? Take a dollar and give it to a valid charity. Be it a homeless person in the neighborhood or elsewhere. Heck, donate blood. I do that every 2 months... And here's what's funny... Whenever I tell people I donate blood, I sometimes get looked at cockeyed. But if you ever meet someone who falls for these charity scams, you can't even tell them they are wrong.
You can NEVER help anyone by doing nothing. So pull off all of the tabs you want if that's your personal deal, but don't play games with the concept of charity to validate you're obsession.
#20 POSTED BY RCANZLOVAR , FEBRUARY 23, 2009 11:02 AM
That's a link for the Ronald McDonald House in Houston only.
Also, this link explains why this is still horse-feathers even if McDonalds has taken advantage of it:
http://www.wheremostneeded.org/2006/05/mcdonalds_pull__1.html
"What's the problem? The truth is, there is nothing special about the pop tab: the whole aluminum can is recyclable. It takes 1,267 pop tabs to make a pound, but just 32 cans."
McDonald's does that to SAVE SPACE. They are actually CREATING MORE WASTE BY ENCOURAGING THIS. It's corporate "green washing" at it's worst.
"Making an urban legend appear real isn't helping people who have real needs. Throwing away valuable cans to donate much less valuable pop tops is nothing but waste."
hospitals in my city take these. they take tabs because they are compact, clean and easily stored, as opposed to the entire can [even when crushed].
also, why so much vitriol? you'd think that some of the posters had dividend paying shares in landfills and are worried about lost profits... ;)
also, just because you've removed the tab does not make it impossible to recycle the can or return it for refund [where applicable].
it's not an exclusive or.
Yes, you shall go to the ball!
http://apocalypsefashion.co.uk/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=2&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=18
Or these might be nicer:
http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20080618/how-can-i-reuse-or-recycle-can-ring-pulls
I've seen collections for these things forever. However, I always assumed that rather than collecting them for recycling and using the money derived from recycling that it was some sort of promotion where you got a dollar for each one or something like that.
I found this part on the page for the Houston site humorous:
Although a simple pull tab may appear to be insignificant, it is in fact the most valuable part of the can. Unlike the rest of the can, the tab is pure aluminum and therefore generates the most money from recycling.
Somehow I am skeptical about the veracity of this statement.
In the second grade, our teacher had all of us collect pop can pull tabs. The reason was never made clear, except that "a little boy will die if you don't collect enough."
This, and Santa Claus, are why I consider myself a skeptic.
Most scrapyards I frequent flat out won't accept them: the alloy is almost worthless even in quantity, and handling 'em is a pain in the ass.
The very first time I ever heard of this urban legend was today, just now on BoingBoing. How widespread could it be?
Keep the tabs and do a penny drive. They are about the same size as tabs and are worth significantly more.
Keeping the deposit for yourself and "donating" the fraction of a cent tab is not really being that charitable, is it?
@33 Capissen,
Sure, it's easy to be skeptical, AFTER THE LITTLE BOY HAS DIED!
If only you had helped. >
AHH! I knew it!
Back when I worked at a summer camp they did this, and I was the only one who complained.
I saw kids swilling soda by the case to turn in their tabs--and the kids who collected the most got to go to McDonalds!
Stupid me asked, "shouldn't we not be getting kids to compete in consuming junk food for a tiny scrap of aluminum?"
I was called an anarchist asshole, and told "we are teaching kids about doing good." I suggested maybe we should teach the kids about thinking about the logic of their actions, but this wasn't as popular for some reason.
To be fair though, at that time I was an anarchist asshole.
I remember a fad many years ago for collecting barcodes for charity. I've still no idea what the logic was behind that
Better to make a chainmail vest out of 'em and go larping for charity:
http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_a_Suit_of_Chainmail_Armor_From_Soda_Can_Tabs
once upon a time, on a beach far, far away, I cut my foot on a pull-tab in the sand. (The first pull-tabs were razor sharp little bastards that tore out of the can-top from a half-cut line) So I started a rumour you could get seeing eye dogs , wheelchairs, cancer cures and perpetual motion machines for redeeming a million of them. Still working I see,
@#29 POSTED BY SUM.ZERO
Are you a robot? Please read this who discussion again and reread it. When you tell someone that the rest of the can is not as valuable as the tab you are basically giving them permission to treat the rest of the can as garbage.
#32 POSTED BY JCCALHOUN , FEBRUARY 23, 2009 11:41 AM
Please read my post (#27) where it verifies it's a lie.
Also this is the best suggestion ever:
@#36 POSTED BY DRHAGGIS
EXACTLY! You know how much change people just toss like garbage? Practically every day I spot at least 2-5 cents on the street. And FWIW, lots of people out there think it's beneath them to pick up money off of the street. Many homeless people won't touch street change. Which is 100% crazy when you think about it.
I found $5 a few weeks back and gave it all to the local homeless lady. Pretty sure that made more positive impact than pulling tabs have ever done.
Ha, at least I have my stack of Indians shooting stars on my Tootsie Roll wrappers. I'll be buried in candy!
Came in to same exactly the same thing Gornzilla! And the myth lives on, I caught my children collecting their Tootsie Pop wrappers. :)
http://www.snopes.com/business/redeem/tootsie.asp
There is a collection jug in my lunch room with the dialysis minute-per-tab lie on it. I printed out the snopes entry and left it under the jug since the owner of the jug is unidentified. The article disappeared, but the jug remains. I try not to be aggravated by the sight.
I do collect the tabs at home though. A friend's kids are in 4H at they are collecting the tabs to create a display of what one million objects looks like. I think this is a cool, educational and obtainable goal.
jack
people are responsible for their actions. end of story. it does not matter that somebody else said they valued a over b. the conclusion that b is now worthless is illogical and reeks of lazy thinking. imho, your recent posts [eg cod:gv thread] reflect an opinion that people must be protected from themselves and their own stupidity. i am against such censorship and distrust anyone who claims that ground for themselves.
again, it's not an exclusive or. there are still options. it's nobody's fault, but that individual's, if they choose not to act upon those options.
On the other hand, you can save up your tabs and donate them to an artist. I've seen a full-size chaise lounge made of soda tabs. Then the art works can be sold at a markup, and some of the proceeds donated to medical care. And there's the piece of design/furniture created as a "byproduct" of the process.
I work at a Ronald McDonald House, and I can tell you, the recycling program brings in a lot more than $5.
Folks commenting seem to think that it isn't possible to generate any money with the program, but they are completely wrong in that assumption--our pop-tab program brings in, on average, about $30,000 per year, and has raised over $800,000 since we started.
Asking people who have curbside recycling to save up their cans and turn them in to another location is functionally impossible--the amount of space you would be asking people to give up is crazy. Yes, pop-tabs are smaller and lighter than a can. That's one of the reasons people are willing to collect thousands of them at time.
I can't speak to the efficacy of every pop-tab program in America, but I know ours (thanks to generous donated support from both recyclers and haulers) has made a huge impact.
It should be mentioned that while individual franchises of McDonald's accept pop-tabs on the House's behalf, corporate McDonald's has little to nothing to do with the program. The idea that this is an evil ploy by the McDonald's corporation to get kids hooked on soda is pretty silly.
Before the wash of comments convinces people that this is always a scam, it would be nice to have it noted in the main body of the text that it is not always the case.
Is it the most efficient way to give to a charity? Of course not. Is it a simple way to get kids and communities involved in something that does do some good? Absolutely. (bear in mind, lots of times a community starts getting involved when one of their own kids is sick and staying at the House. Giving that child's friends something to do that doesn't cost them any additional money is a great way for them to feel that they are having a beneficial impact on their friend's life, and as folks have noted, stays with them right through adulthood.)
So that means each can is equal to almost 40 pull tabs (1,267 divided by 32 equals 39.59)...
If I collect cans instead of pull tabs, does that mean I care almost 40 times more than the average pull tab collector?
Jumping in here from the thread on gaming and real life -
In Fallout Tactics, Ring Pulls are the currency in the post apocalyptic world, along with bottle caps, and very devalued pre-war currency. Which means little to people saving them now, but come 2012, it'll be a goldmine.
Great story from the West Virginia AP about bottle caps and other urban legends.
http://www.timeswv.com/westvirginia/local_story_003015721.html
http://www.pulltabsforcharity.org/home
One of 20 or so that come up. Luckily, the majority of the people that have responded have done so in such an unnecessarily vapant way (whining that it's not enough, even though it's likely more than they've done) that they've likely soured many folks on the idea of doing anything at all, so it won't be a problem for much longer.
Wow. When did BBers become such a bunch of whiny douche bags?!? Seriously, what do you care if I donate 40¢ a day to a charity?!? I can promise you one thing, however, I have FAR more respect for the folks collecting 1 tab at a time than I do the folks bitching about it.
YES, there is 'so much more that they could do!!', but guess what? In the time it took to log onto BB and complain about someone else's effort, they could have delivered a meal to a homeless person, or read a book to a child, or signed up to teach a literacy class at the library. Did they? No. They pissed about the efforts of other people.
Ya know, I don't think I've ever logged onto Boing Boing and left in a worse mood than when I started.
I heard there was this fake charity that would set up pull-tab collection stations, and then when people showed up alone they would drug them and steal their kidneys. For real man! They'd wake up in a bathtub full of ice with empty beer bottles everywhere. Well mostly empty except for the spider egg cases? And then the phone would ring.
THE BOY @50, Brilliant. I love that the designers included that reference.
#48 Charity is a right and fine thing, but efficacy of a charity is at least as important.
The going rate for a pound of can-grade aluminum is about $0.25.
This takes roughly a thousand tabs to make a pound. If I reverse engineer the math you must take in 7,500,000 tabs to make $30,000.
If you had collected pennies you would have made 2.5x as much money with less overhead, and been able to collect from people who don't drink soda from cans. I produce less than zero pull tabs in an average year (rounding) but every day I've got more pennies taking up space in my change jar.
Oh who am I bullshitting, I'm not going to donate my pennies either. I write a check once a year for the tax write-off.
I've never heard of this before, the only thing that comes close would be calling them Fuck-tabs, that supposedly you could redeem for a fuck...never found out where to redeem them though. (and now that I think of it, a similiar redemption program for the labels off beer bottles). But why pull-tabs, there's 9 states that give you a nickel for the whole can, and 1 state that gives a whole dime. Even if you're state doesn't, it stands to reason that a semi trailer full of cans and bottles, etc could pay for the gas and have enough left over for charity. Or maybe set up with some local redemption centers so people can directly donate their refunds (like you can do with some of those coin sorting machines in some grocery stores).
The Shriners have been collecting can tabs for ages to help buy equipment for their children's hospitals. http://www.shrinershq.org/Hospitals/Springfield/Aluminum_Tab_Collection.aspx
Setting aside the actual programs run by Shriner's Hospitals, I sort of wonder... If you came across someone who was collecting for a good cause, but it was entirely based on an urban legend, would you correct them?
I probably wouldn't.
Australia here. Yep, my last job, somebody was adamant these things were valuable, due to their supposed titanium content. In this instance, they were used to may prosthetic limbs for the... limbless masses. Just how many of those things do you think would be needed to make just one false leg?
People's hearts are in the right place, their heads, however... well... their hearts are in the right place.
There may be a US/rest of world mismatch here: In the UK all tabs are firmly attached to a can - they stay on it when you pull to open.
Is this different in the US - are there still tabs which come all the way off? Or are people exerting the (considerable) force required to remove them?!?! Which makes no sense.
UK recycling is not usually part of charitable collecting these days - its more a save-the-planet add on to trash collection.
Here in West Australia it's still pretty common to see this though it's usually for a kids prosthetic leg. Special type of aluminium and such ;)
I always enjoy asking the people for specifics, I usually get accused of being a child hating devil but feel justified when you see the doubt in their eyes.
A few years ago I was shocked to see a Ronald McDonald house tab collection box at my work like #10 says above. I actually went to the Ronald McDonald house in the area to investigate. They take them because people give them to them and then they got $0.42/lb for them as scrap (in 2006). I felt so bad that I wrote them a check on the spot for a donation.
Just don't tell people that the effort would be better spent do almost anything else but collecting the tabs for Ronald McDonald house. For comparison a pound of pennies is $1.81, haul them to Ronald McDonald house instead (great minds think alike #36). I even suggested that instead of putting together a collection drive that you would generate more funds for Ronald McDonald house per hour worked by getting a minimum wage job and donating the salary to Ronald McDonald house. People get very upset when you bring up economics and decry the value of collection, and talk about all of the intangibles like getting the message out (like #17 above). It has caused a several year argument in the comment section of the post where I tried to debunk the process.
Lately there is a new rumor which doesn't even have the altruistic theme of collecting for others. Some people think you can get a free keg of beer for a milk jug full of pop (soda) tabs. Nope, not true, you still only get about $2 - $3 scrap per gallon jug collected depending on how packed in they are.
My lesson from the pull tab fiasco is that charity is sometimes more about the good feelings of the giver than the efficacy of the gift.
It was surprising just how pissed off one of my coworkers got when I pointed this out to her a few years ago. She'd been a pop tab nazi since long before I started with the company and always gave people crap for not putting pop tabs in the box. I gave her a dollar and told her that should cover me for the next 5 years, and sent her the info from snopes, plus a couple of websites on pricing of bulk aluminum, recycling, etc...
The reaction was something that I think approximated to "I'm right because I believe I'm right and so do other people".... like it was some kind of religion for her or something.
*shrug*
In my neck of the woods we get AU$0.10/can or glass bottle ... why not just recycle the whole thing?
OK people, I'll be blunt. Pull tabs are just that east to collect and they add up. I've been the Resident Director of Johnson Cities RMH for two years now and I thought it was the stupidest idea in McHistory too... but man was I wrong. There are so many reasons why this was a good idea - They compact VERY well;they DON'T STINK, and (most importantly) they give people a chance to keep the House in mind every time they open a coke, beer, or energy drink (obviously quite often from the amount of tabs I see come through our doors). I collect tabs and sell them back to the recycling center at our local RMH in Johnson City about twice a month (that's at least a $600 check boys and girls). Believe me, we would rather have checks loading our mailbox ($600 worth of tabs are very heavy..) but this is yet another clever way to keep the House at heart and subsidize our donations/ income.. Hope that Helped!
As with alot of these internet "investigation" websites, you're completely missing the point. Ronald McDonald does have pull tab programs and they do use the pull tabs as a charitable collection program to raise money. But this is mainly to raise awareness. It is used to get people and kids involved, learning how to think about others and to volunteer. We're talking about the Ronald McDonald houses right now because of the pull tab program.
i have been told that if you fill up a milk jub full of these tabs and you go to a recycling place that they will give you about $200 for a milk jug full.
(This may have been voiced in the comments above-- sorry)
While the actual value the tabs bring in is nominal, the awareness they raise about kidney dialysis is worth its weight in advertising gold. How many people ask, "Why are you saving those tabs?" Each time the saver answers, it brings kidney dialysis (and the Ronald McDonald House) into that person's awareness. Often tab-sendings are accompanied by larger cash donations.
Look at it this way: how often do you mention a favorite charity to random people? Probably not a lot...but ask for a pull tab (or have them see you saving one) and RMcDH/kidney dialysis gets a plug.
Additionally, tab-saving is a simple and effortless way for tab-savers and whole communities (schools, groups, etc.) to be involved in the whole process--which includes that spreading of awareness. This also sends the message to kids that "every little bit counts."
I don't whose worse, the idiots who believe the urban legends or the idiots who believe the INACCURATE DEBUNKING of the legends and spout off about it liek they think they are metalurgists.
Yes, the tabs are worth no more than their recycle value, and yes there are lies perpetuated about their purity and worth.
The only people who's word to take on how much they are worth are the people who ACTUALLY recycle them. Not the self-impressed folk who think they are experts because the read a snopes.com article and think that is 'proof.'
Fact is, you can an should recycle the can AND the tab, but orgs that use the tabs only get extra benefits, which have all been mentioned. They are easier to store and transport (one org here gets 10x as much for one truckload of tabs at the recycle center than for the same truck full of cans. It's a matter of volume.
And they are cleaner, and they get more involvement and awareness then if they just asked for money...which of course they do also. But people who would not give money WILL turn in tabs, so they get MORE value. Something is better than nothing. To those folks who say 'just give pennies', sure...but why not give dimes? They are even smaller, lighter and worth more. But then why waste time with dimes, give dollar bills!
Fact is, if the org ACTUALLY gets benefit from the tabs, then it's good. Period.
in new york they will give u 3000 dollars for a gallon full of tabs
My girl friend's church actually does purchase a minute of dialysis time for each tab that is turned in. I've met the wife of one of the recipients, and she was real enough to convince me to keep collecting.
One thing I didn't see mentioned is the fact that making new aluminum cans out of recycled cans uses about 5% of the energy that it takes to make new cans out of bauxite ore.
Another is that if you save a pound of tabs and throw away the cans, that's nearly 40 pounds of cans in the landfill.
What a terrible waste all around. (And at current rates, that 40 pounds of cans will net you enough cash to buy about 30 brand new cans FULL OF BEER!)
Cheers