pull-tabs Quartz Essence Talisman

From Disconnection to Connection
In the 1970s, sun-drenched beaches teemed with visitors, yet beneath the golden sands lurked countless detached pull-tabs—metallic thorns threatening barefoot children and ingested by foraging seabirds.

The U.S. EPA documented a shocking cleanup of 300,000 pull-tabs from a single Florida beach in just one month—these gleaming hooves became blinding scars under the sun. The turning point came in 1989 when engineer Daniel F. Cudzik, after five years of solitary pursuit, pioneered the "stay-on tab". That stubborn sliver of metal clinging to the can lid would never again drift through city streets, nor wander wilderness or seas.