Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 9, 1993 TAG: 9308090020
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHANIE STOUGHTON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The old way to open a can was a ring tab that snapped off.
Cudzik brought an improved design - the "Stay-on-Tab" - to Reynolds Metals Co. in 1974. The opening device has not only kept pieces of aluminum from being gulped down along with soft drinks and beer, but also has kept the tabs from littering the nation's beaches, parks and highways.
Cudzik's design has been credited for helping prevent the aluminum can market from slumping, said William E. Leahey Jr., vice president of Richmond-based Reynolds' can division.
The industry was growing rapidly in the '70s when several states, including Virginia, began considering legislation that would have banned aluminum beverage cans until a non-detachable tab was developed.
"Had the Stay-on-Tab not been developed, the industry probably would have had more pressure to move toward glass containers," said Richard S. Palm, an analyst and first vice president of Merrill Lynch Research in New York.
For the aluminum can industry, "it was either back to the can opener or invent a non-detachable tab," Leahey said.
That task went to Cudzik, who is still working for Reynolds' can division in suburban Richmond. The design began as a brainstorm at home. He sketched the design on paper and then constructed a 2-foot-by-3-foot cardboard mockup with a wood panel as the tab and tape as the hinge.
He proudly carried the piece into the Can Development Center in 1974, where he lifted the plywood tab.
The tab popped open the hole. But the hinge didn't snap and the tab stayed on.
"Sometimes the most simple way is the most direct," he said.
The company received the patents on July 6, 1976. More than 821 billion aluminum beverage cans later, Reynolds Metals' U.S. patents on the Stay-on-Tab have expired. The invention became a part of the public domain on July 6.
"For me it leaves a very strong feeling that we have done a good job," said Cudzik, 59. "It has never changed . . . it has matured. Maybe it will go another 17 years."
You can bend the Stay-on-Tab back and forth at least four times without it detaching, Cudzik said. But most people - unless they're bored, nervous, or testing the device - don't wiggle it.
It is rare for the tab to detach the first time a person tries to open the can, especially since it has been improved over the years, he said.
For physicians, that's a relief.
Dr. Lee F. Rogers of Northwestern University recalls cases of people swallowing the detachable tabs in the '70s.
"We would see the pieces in X-rays," he said. Rogers said in some cases, the tabs would tear the esophageal wall or become lodged in the trachea.
In addition, he said he had heard of cases in which discarded tabs showed up in the intestinal tracts of animals.
Environmentalists also might be pleased to know that 600 million pounds of aluminum tabs have been recycled since 1975.
The U.S. patents accounted for $1 million in royalties each year for Reynolds Metals, said Leahey, the vice president of the can division. The company's foreign patents on the Stay-on-Tab have not expired.
Reynolds pioneered the aluminum can in 1963. Of 94 billion cans produced in the nation last year, Reynolds made 11 billion, Leahey said. Its can division accounts for 14 percent to 18 percent of the company's sales, Leahey said.
Reynolds posted losses for the second quarter ending June 30 of $22.8 million, or 38 cents per share. That compared to earnings of $25 million, or 42 cents per share, for the same quarter last year.
Sales dropped 9 percent to $1.36 billion, compared with $1.50 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.
The company said the losses were a result of the market being flooded by exports from the countries of the former Soviet Union.
by CNB