Part of the fun of drinking a cold can of pop is hearing that satisfying snap of the lid as it pops open. However, the simple act of pushing down the tab to open your can wasn't always so simple, as people who grew up before the Nineties know. In fact, it used to be a pretty big problem.

Back in the day, canned drinks like soda or beer had a "pull tab", which came off the can entirely and left you with an opening to drink from. That doesn't seem like such a problem... but then you have the tab detached from the can, with sharp edges. And while a lot of people certainly followed the guidelines and disposed of those tabs safely, enough didn't that it became a major problem.

"Progress often has its disadvantages and that's the way it is with the aluminum beverage cans," bemoaned the St. Petersburg Times in 1975. "In time, the American landscape — especially along roadsides — became littered with discarded cans and their pull tabs. The tabs even found their way into the intestinal tracts of wild and domestic fowl, fish, and animals."

In 1971, an article in the Lansing State Journal observed that "14 Williamston Boy Scouts picked up 705 pull tabs from beer and soft drink cans in about 45 minutes as they walked along a swimming beach in Oakland County. The boys noticed that most of the pull tabs had printing on them which said: 'Prevent Litter.'"

In an effort to be more environmentally friendly, thirsty consumers would drop the tab inside the can instead after opening it. However, that created a whole new problem.

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"Such a practice has resulted in inadvertent swallowing of pull tabs and aspiration of ring tabs," the Springfield News-Sun wrote. "Because pull tabs are made of aluminum, which is very light in weight, they are difficult to detect by X-rays. The edges of the tabs are sharp and may cut into the surrounding tissue."

The St. Petersburg Times pointed to the July 28 issue of the 1975 Journal of American Medical Association, where three cases were reported of individuals who had to seek medical attention from accidentally swallowing the pull tabs. A 21-year-old man and a 22-year-old man were drinking beer, and a 5-year-old boy was drinking pop. 

Through the Eighties, a new design was introduced that kept the tab attached to the can. By the Nineties, the new, safer stay-tab design was adopted widely by both beer and soft drink cans. Now you can enjoy a cold drink at a picnic without worrying about stepping on a sharp, discarded pull tab — or swallowing it.