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Yes I sell or keep them for craft projects.
Yes I donate them to charity.
Yes I get more for them at the scrap yard than cans.
Yes other reason.
No keep them on more weight.
No other reason.

No. I calculated it one time and it takes at least 1,000 pull tabs to make a pound. A quick web search brings slightly higher estimates of 1,100 to 1,200. It's not worth the time and energy to bother pulling them off.

I live in a bottle deposit state, so I can return cans that are missing the pull tabs and still get the full $0.05 deposit (going to $0.10 next year). It's still not worth it.

When I find cans that are crushed in parking lots or the road I sell them with my mixed aluminum.

I do save the pull tabs from Monster energy drinks, as those sell for a premium on eBay (about $0.03 each). If I was running large volumes of cans it would absolutely be worth saving those.

Dr. Cadmium wrote:. I do save the pull tabs from Monster energy drinks, as those sell for a premium on eBay (about $0.03 each). If I was running large volumes of cans it would absolutely be worth saving those.

What is so special about the Monster Energy pull tabs?

Saving pull tabs is a waste of time and energy.

At a value of roughly 2.5-3 cents a can, I can see where many recyclers wouldn’t even want to save aluminum cans of any type or size. I’m not in one of those bottle deposit states.

A couple of trivia items for everyone:

Did you know that aluminum (and also nickel and zinc) are on the 2022 list of Critical Minerals (per usgs.gov). Yet copper, gold and silver and NOT on the list. This alone should be reason enough to stop making zinc pennies.

Another item- many years ago lowly aluminum was MORE EXPENSIVE THAN GOLD. Pretty sure this was the late 1800’s, but I read something about royalty having guests for dinner. The most important guests ate at the main table with aluminum utensils. The paupers ate at a different table with GOLD utensils. The reason aluminum was so expensive is that even though we had lots of it in the earth, nobody knew how to isolate it from other metals for a long time.

Why would you get more for a lb of tabs than a lb of cans? The tabs are made of the same material as the cans arent they? I can see removing the tabs if you live in a state with a deposit and the tab is not required to be on the can.

At one time, I too had these nagging doubts.

For a year I saved the tabs to give to ,Ronald MacDonald house. That was when I learned, they got .44 as dirty aluminum. While cans were .50.
Lots better to donate 10% of the cash you got for your cans.

I saw it takes 1267 tabs to make a pound. I have given mine to a niece who was collecting them for school, and another who was collecting them for girl scouts. I thought the same if you lived in a deposit state makes sense to remove them. How many times when you go camping or to the lake do you find one of the old pull tabs with the ring? I find one or two almost every time.

https://pulltabarchaeology.com/archaeology/

I don't see where the push button openers are listed on that site but I Remer them after they got rid of the pull tabs. I also Remer guys pulling the tab and putting it in with there beer to drink.

Found in Archaeology under a Timeline of Pulltabs

1975 Push button can introduced by American Can Company
1975 first UPC ‘universal product codes’ (streepjescodes) But note that Rustycans says they first appeared on US cans in 1978
1975 European 13 digit EAN barcodes were invented around this time.
1977 End of the push buttons in the USA – (Would revive briefly in Europe around 1989-1990)

That is a really interesting site.

Thanks I missed that!

Recyclersteve wrote:What is so special about the Monster Energy pull tabs?

They have a rewards program where you can exchange pull tabs for t-shirts and other merchandise, so there is a secondhand market for the tabs.

hobo finds wrote:https://pulltabarchaeology.com/archaeology/

Fascinating site!