Opening a canned drink used to be a lot riskier in the Seventies

The pull tabs on aluminum cans may have been convenient, but they were a real problem for the environment — and sent people to the hospital.

The Coca-Cola Company

Part of the fun of drinking a cold can of pop is hearing that satisfying snap of the lid as it pops open. However, the simple act of pushing down the tab to open your can wasn't always so simple, as people who grew up before the Nineties know. In fact, it used to be a pretty big problem.

Back in the day, canned drinks like soda or beer had a "pull tab", which came off the can entirely and left you with an opening to drink from. That doesn't seem like such a problem... but then you have the tab detached from the can, with sharp edges. And while a lot of people certainly followed the guidelines and disposed of those tabs safely, enough didn't that it became a major problem.

"Progress often has its disadvantages and that's the way it is with the aluminum beverage cans," bemoaned the St. Petersburg Times in 1975. "In time, the American landscape — especially along roadsides — became littered with discarded cans and their pull tabs. The tabs even found their way into the intestinal tracts of wild and domestic fowl, fish, and animals."

In 1971, an article in the Lansing State Journal observed that "14 Williamston Boy Scouts picked up 705 pull tabs from beer and soft drink cans in about 45 minutes as they walked along a swimming beach in Oakland County. The boys noticed that most of the pull tabs had printing on them which said: 'Prevent Litter.'"

In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, thirsty consumers would drop the tab inside the can instead after opening it. However, that created a whole new problem.

"Such a practice has resulted in inadvertent swallowing of pull tabs and aspiration of ring tabs," the Springfield News-Sun wrote. "Because pull tabs are made of aluminum, which is very light in weight, they are difficult to detect by X-rays. The edges of the tabs are sharp and may cut into the surrounding tissue."

The St. Petersburg Times pointed to the July 28 issue of the 1975 Journal of American Medical Association, where three cases were reported of individuals who had to seek medical attention from accidentally swallowing the pull tabs. A 21-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were drinking beer, and a 5-year-old boy was drinking pop. 

Through the Eighties, a new design was introduced that kept the tab attached to the can. By the Nineties, the new, safer stay-tab design was adopted widely by both beer and soft drink cans. Now you can enjoy a cold drink at a picnic without worrying about stepping on a sharp, discarded pull tab — or swallowing it.

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39 Comments

Antenna2 14 days ago
My first memory of a bottle cap came at a hotel vending machine in early 1970 - you had to put the top of the bottle into the opener and pry the cap off. Before that experience at 14, we did have a "church key" as others here spoke of and at home Dad would pry off the bottle cap with that device. As for aluminum can pop tops, as someone else here also noted, Jimmy Buffett spoke of that in his 1977 song about life in the Florida Keys and how he cut his heel on one of those sharp tops. At least with bottle caps kids used to collect those - I'm sure bags of them are still in some senior citizen's garage (oops, I'm a senior citizen but I never collected those things).
Rick 17 days ago
It's a lot harder to make a pull-tab necklace these days, though.
Robbinz 17 days ago
If I recall correctly there is a line in Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville about stepping on a pop top and cutting his heel..
KawiVulc 17 days ago
Problem for the environment... they hadn't seen anything yet. Just take a drive on a highway & check out the crap people have tossed out their windows or let fall off a trailer or pickup bed. Yesterday I saw the hood from a lawn tractor against a guardrail. People couldn't be bothered to have a church key around these days but those cans never left anything to litter with when you opened them... except, of course, the can itself and unfortunately pigs will be pigs.
Rob KawiVulc 10 days ago
Where did you see that lawn tractor hood? I’ve been looking everywhere for it!
Runeshaper 18 days ago
Getting rid of those pull tabs was a change for the better.
JHP 18 days ago
and just think those tabs are gold for us alum can recycle-rs
and NO JD with coke - only dum dums would waste the taste of JD with soda
viewfromio 18 days ago
I was in high school, early seventies, and while walking on the shore of our local lake, I stepped on one of the discarded tabs and it drove into my heel like a knife. I had to pull it out because it wasn't coming out on its own. That'll teach me. But being barefoot was great anyways!
JHP viewfromio 18 days ago
hope no tetanus?
BradBeall viewfromio 12 days ago
You actually lived part of a Jimmy Buffet song, although I believe "Margaritaville" came out a little after that.
edcrumpacker 18 days ago
I remember those pull tabs. I would put them back in the can AFTER I got all boozed up.
BradBeall 18 days ago
And the pull-tab rings on pre-1977 cans had 2 tiny slots in them, and by breaking off the "tab" part, then inserting it sideways into either of the slots, you could launch that little ring about 50 yards! With practice, you could aim it to hit other people, or even target-shoot them into containers or garbage cans!
Badge714 19 days ago
We live in a world today of over-protected weaklings, it appears.
JHP Badge714 18 days ago
bulls eye for sure!! We got back up cameras in vehicles' we can take our hands off the wheel while the whatever is in motion - media that tells us that eggs are bad and then a "new clinical study comes out that they are good for you" I just heard that dog walking has hazards of skinned knees ; shoulder and arm trauma and then head injuries (and then news clip says that people should not be on their almighty cell phones during this activity - something wrong with this clip?!)
bmoore4026 19 days ago
I vaguely remember tabs being like this. Then again, everything was a blur up until 1985 for me since I was born in late 1980.
justjeff 19 days ago
If you go back before the 1960s, beer and soda cans required being puncture-opened by a classic can opener... In fact, many beer companies gave them away as promotional pieces...
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JHP justjeff 18 days ago
they were called a church-key
tootsieg JHP 17 days ago
I miss opening cans and bottles with a “church key”. Still have one with a magnet on my refrigerator. Why? I don’t know. 😊
JHP tootsieg 17 days ago
good ol' memories - I got one also on the frig
kkvegas justjeff 17 days ago
I am a little young to remember this. The first time I realized that beer and soda didn't always have pop tops was when watching an episode of Mad Men when Don Draper took a beer out of the fridge and opened it with an opener.
Snickers 19 days ago
Have the same problem with soda cans now. You lift the pull ring and it some times breaks off leaving you trying to get the can open
cperrynaples 19 days ago
The same problem existed with Snack Pack pudding! They even added a warning in the commercial! By the '80's they switched to plastic packaging!
Coachb 19 days ago
I can remember er watching an episode of Emergency where a man put his pull tab back in the can and he chocked.
I wish Emergency was still on MeTV. I know it comes on another retro network that I do not get it w my service.
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krpurtell Snickers 17 days ago
We used to do this all the time.
Snickers krpurtell 17 days ago
Not a very safe thing to do. I to remember the pull tabs would break off and were very sharp.
foamergirl Snickers 17 days ago
So as to not litter. 🤣
DocForbin Coachb 16 days ago
Apparently you're going to get your wish. Supposedly "Emergency!" Is going to be back on MeTV starting October 7 at 5:00 PM ET/4:00 PM CT.
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