Right off the bat, we don’t call soda “pop” in New England, so you pretty much lost me, right from the start.
Several years back, I remember that there was this big push at the company to save plastic juice and water caps for some reason. Well, for chemotherapy for veterans or something. Bags of plastic waste were collected. Then an email was sent, the bags were quietly disappeared, nobody would admit that they’d been scammed.
When I saw these tab buckets pop up all over the office, I think I was right to be a little skeptical. How could soda can tabs turn into something worth money? My best guess is that some foundation would collect the tabs, count them, and then donate a buck or something for each one. (But then, why not just donate the money without the tabs?)
All soda cans in the New York/New England area give a nickel when you return a can for recycling. So soda enjoyers are removing the tab from the can, slipping it into this plastic bucket, and then placing the much more valuable part of the can into the recycling bin, where presumably a recycling company collects all those nickels.
Can these tabs possibly be worth more than the whole can?
No. The answer is no.
It takes approximately 1,128 pop tabs to equal one pound. We typically receive between $0.40 to $0.50 per pound of pop tabs. This program brings in an average of $6,000 each year. Last year you donated over 13 million pop tabs! We accept more than just soda pop tabs. The tabs can come from energy drinks, soup cans, or anything with a metallic tab.
According to the Ronald McDonald House website, 13,000,000+ soda can tabs is worth $6,000 in raw aluminum. All the cost to advertise the program, recruit companies like mine, to collect the tabs and sell them to a smelter, has to be many multiples of the actual amount they raise.
They’d clearly make more money from the cans themselves. They’d make more money if they just asked for loose change. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski makes $6,000 eating his daily Egg McMuffin.
Kempczinski is paid 1,212 times the median McDonald’s employees wage, by the way. He could donate that $6,000 and not miss it. Would take him just a moment.
So, soda can tabs for the Ronald McDonald House? Not a scam. But not the best way to help, either.
Each soda can tab is worth half of a tenth of a cent. You’d be making twenty times the contribution by dropping a penny in the bucket instead.
