Beverage Can Pull Tabs
Remember when beverage cans were made of steel and tin instead of aluminum? They had no pull tabs…you needed a can opener to punch two triangular holes in the lid: a bigger one to drink or pour out of and a smaller one to let in air. I, for one, remember these well. Eventually, aluminum replaced these, but the first aluminum cans were no different. You still needed a can opener to get them open.You needed one until 1963. That was when the pull tab was invented. You know, those little things you used to cut your foot on at the beach…the things you would collect and bring to a recycling plant for money…the things you’d make necklaces out of…
In 1963 its inventor, Ermal Cleon Fraze, licensed his invention to Alcoa and the Pittsburgh Brewing Company.
The first drink to be in a pull tab can was Iron City Beer made by the Pittsburgh Brewing Company and the first soft drinks to use them were R.C. Cola and Diet-Rite Cola, both made by the Royal Crown Cola Company in 1964.
Beverage cans used the pull tabs until 1975. That’s when Daniel F. Cudzik of Reynolds Metals in Richmond, Virginia invented the “stay tab”…also called colon tabs…but I don’t know why. I do know why he invented them though: partly to prevent the injuries caused by the removable tabs, but also in response to the public mood for stopping litter.
By the 1980s stay tabs almost completely replaced pull tabs in most parts of the world. But pull tabs are still common in some places like China and the Middle East.
Have a wonderful weekend!