Ring pulls!
Remember these?
When I was young, many moons ago, it was standard practice to ‘get married’ by ring pull.
A beer can ring pull, a coke can ring pull, it didn’t matter which.
Nostalgia aside, the ring pull became a thing of the past. Environmentally it was a negative. It got discarded, it polluted, it parted company with the can and was thus not recycled.
It created litter and could even be a choking hazard, if dropped into the can.
Poor old ring pull it had to go!
According to Wikipedia:
A beverage can is a metal container designed to hold a fixed portion of liquid such as a carbonated soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, fruit juices, teas, herbal teas, energy drinks, etc. Beverage cans are made of aluminium (75% of worldwide production)[1] or tin-plated steel (25% worldwide production). Worldwide production for all beverage cans is approximately 475 billion cans per year worldwide, 52 billion per year in Europe.[1]
The ringpull was replaced by the ‘stay pull’ around 1980. That’s more than 30 years ago. Allegedly….
But apparently that wasn’t the case. When we travel we encounter old school style ring pulls even today.
I don’t understand.
How come western countries have moved towards a less environmentally damaging can design but it’s not a world wide thing?
If cans doesn’t have an attached ‘stay’ pull in other countries, then Why not?
Dare I say it?
Is it because in some places no one complains about the negatives and it’s cheaper not to re-equip the factories particularly when those factories can have the machinery that used to make the old design in the west?
I really wish they’d make it world wide policy.
Take it with you:
25 comments on “Ring pulls!”
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Green Lizard's Blog 
I once had a chubby 11-year-old Turkish boy propose to me with a rolled up Curly Wurly 🙂 Trying to think what ring pulls are like here – I never buy canned drinks! I’ll look when I go to the supermarket!
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Good idea. I feel like doing a global survey. Curly wurly eh?
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Yeah, I had to tell him that it wasn’t really appropriate for his 30+ English teacher to marry him. He was a bit heart-broken but said he’d look me up again when he turned 18 🙂 Funny kid!
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Always good to keep in mind. (As your mother might say)
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She might but I probably wouldn’t listen 🙂
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That’s the one!
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If red wine came in cans, you’d be the global expert 😉
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She would!
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She’s in Berlin right now, and has discovered a bargain offer – €1.99 a bottle. I’ve a feeling we won’t be hearing from her for a very long time…
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Oh dear!
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Ouch 😉 I’m on white at the moment as it’s summer 😉
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That’s a tough question. Is it ignorance? Did the companies buy the old equipment for dirt cheap when policy changed?
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I honestly think it’s because ‘green’ attitudes are the premise of the rich in the west. Elsewhere that’s a luxury.
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Isn’t that depressing? Being environmentally friendly is a luxury.
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Yep. It’s all about economics. I see so much evidence of it in our travels. And often litter related.
Change if topic. Not long now….!
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I agree with you! The choking hazard is really scary.
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Definitely.
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Interesting post 🙂
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Totally agree. I too remember the two press buttons were introduced to aluminium cans. Do they still make these? If not, why did they stop manufacturing them? Maybe that is the solution to this dilemma.
If you or anyone else are interested in Repurposing their Ring pulls it can be done. This is just one very simple idea but there are plenty of other ways. I was surprised how much jewellery is made with them.
How this Ringpull will Save you Money: http://wp.me/p4smrr-14
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Thanks. Just checked this out in your blog. Thanks for the follow too!
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It is all about money
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Yep. I think so.
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I don’t think being environmentally friendly is a luxury, I think it’s seen like that in the west but in the rest of the world people are environmentally friendly through necessity. For example, in Botswana water scarcity is a huge problem that everyone is aware of. The government reports dam levels weekly on it’s facebook page, although the recycling situation remains poor and most food et c is imported. In South Africa it is seen as something for liberal hippie types (rich capetonians) or poor people. My cousin told me there’s no way for the middle class to be sustainable and organic food is so expensive. This is a rhetoric taken from the western world because organic food here doesn’t carry the price premiums that it does overseas unless it’s imported. Our climate is so fantastic we can produce most food crops locally at least for most of the year so the decision to go without imported citrus for a couple of months while our papayas and mangoes are in season should be easy. Mostly, as far as I can see, for the middle class here it’s laziness and lack of concern. I REALLY related to this article and found the graphics very enlightening. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2014/may/09/why-we-couldnt-care-less-about-the-natural-world
Sorry about the rant but I’ve just been mulling over this issue for the past couple of days.
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That’s very true. Frugal environmentalism in countries where the ingenuity if recycling puts the west to shame can teach us so many lessons. The laziness drives me crazy. I’m heading over to that article right now. Thanks for the rant. It makes me so frustrated that there’s no global policy. Look at plastic bags. Rwanda banned them in 2007 yet other countries are still debating. Ridiculous!
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So maybe it’s the lack of multinational responsibility in this case. I was too tired to check the brand of drink but I’m pretty sure it was a ‘well known’ one. Too lazy to use more environmental technology abroad perhaps?
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