Did you know that you can volunteer from home to help a sick child just by saving aluminum pull tabs? Collecting pull tabs is a terrific way to help children receiving medical treatment and their families stay at Ronald McDonald House. With each pull tab you collect, you are making a difference while volunteering from the comfort of your own home.
How does it work?
1) Collect aluminum pull tabs from cans.
2) Drop your pull tabs off at your local RMH between the hours of 9am and 6pm.
What if you don’t have a local Ronald McDonald House?
Please take your tabs to your local recycling center. The recycling center can make out a check to RMH for the value of the tabs, and you can mail the check to any RMH in the country. I know our local house would love to receive your donation and will use it well. Their address is: Pasadena Ronald McDonald House 763 South Pasadena Ave. Pasadena, CA 91105
What happens to the tabs once they are given to Ronald McDonald House?
The RMH staff turns the tabs into a recycling center for funds. Funds from the sale of the recycled pull tabs are used to help pay for families to stay at the house while their children are being treated for an illness or injury. In our area, a pound of tabs is recycled for approximately $0.85.
Why save the tab and not the whole can?
- Tabs require less storage space per pound.
- Saving tabs is cleaner than saving the whole can. Typically, there isn’t that messy food or soda residue on the tabs.
- Watching the number of tabs in a collection container grow is fun for the whole family.
Interesting Pull Tab Facts:*
- A million pull tabs weigh about 800 pounds.
- 1,200 pull tabs weigh about one pound.
- Approximately 64,000 pull tabs laid out would measure a mile.
- The pull tab was invented by Reynolds Metals Company, who received a patent for their design in 1976.
- And… aluminum can be recycled endlessly.
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If you would like to learn about more DIY volunteer from home projects like these, please subscribe to this page, Make a Difference From Home.
This blog is hosted by Small Acts Big Change, a nonprofit organization helping people volunteer to change the world through kindness and service.
Group Opportunities:
Would you like to bring this project or another from Make a Difference From Home to a group you are involved with while still practicing social distancing? Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, schools, businesses or other groups, please contact Carolyn at [email protected] for more information.
Thank you:
Thanks for volunteering and for making a difference from home. Please subscribe to our Make a Difference From Home blog to receive information on all kinds of do-it-yourself volunteer projects that benefit people, animals and our environment. <3
* Source: Marc Bona, Cleveland, Ohio
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