https://www.ronaldmcdonaldhousehouston.org/HowToHelp/PullTabProgram.htm

At worst it cuts down on litter. What’s not to like?

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.

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…

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.”

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.

http://www.snopes.com/business/redeem/tootsie.asp

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… ;)

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.

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.

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

it’s not an exclusive or.

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.

http://apocalypsefashion.co.uk/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=2&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=18

http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/20080618/how-can-i-reuse-or-recycle-can-ring-pulls

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*

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.

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.)

This, and Santa Claus, are why I consider myself a skeptic.

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.”

It takes 1,267 pop tabs to make a pound, but just 32 cans

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?