Pop tabs program gets big boost

Former Pictou County resident Wade MacDonald, left, and Trenton resident Archie Kontuk dip into a bag of pop tabs MacDonald delivered last week from his church in Dartmouth. (Goodwin photo)

A 25-year project by Archie Kontuk to collect pop tabs to help make wheelchairs for those who need them is still going strong.
The Trenton resident most recently arrived at Summer Street Industries last Wednesday to accept two garbage bags full of tabs from Wade MacDonald on behalf of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Dartmouth.
The bags include the 1,000,000th tag the church collected last March.
“We passed the 1,000,000 mark back in March and at that time if placed end-to-end, the tabs would stretch 20 kilometres, or just about from our church to the Halifax International Airport,” said MacDonald, who is originally from Pictou County and has a summer residence here.
The church’s tab collection started in 2003 as a church school project to help celebrate the church’s 50th anniversary.
Word got around and tabs are dropped off from around Dartmouth and as far away as Vancouver, Atlanta, Ga. and Houston, Texas.
“It was a way to get the kids involved and it has just kept growing from there,” MacDonald said.
“It’s a way for the kids to feel they’ve contributed. The children in our church school are still very interested in Archie and every Sunday there is a pile of tabs to collect and store.”
According to Kontuk’s brochure called Pop Tabs in Action, a pound of tabs is worth 50 cents and it takes more than 3,000 tabs to comprise a pound.
The transporting wheelchair is valued at about $500, or more than 3,000,000 tabs.
The church collected 3,000 tabs at a time to fill a gallon jug.
Kontuk has a clear connection with his wheelchair project, having been in a wheelchair for 12 years as a child.
Then in 1993, he heard about a family collecting pop tabs to raise money to purchase a wheelchair for their daughter.
“I decided that it would be a great idea to help and I’ve collected pop tabs ever since,” Kontuk is quoted as saying on his brochure.
“This has been a wonderful experience for me and together we are making a real difference.”
Kontuk takes the pop tabs he receives to a local bottle exchange and all the money from the exchange goes into buying wheelchairs. He’s now collecting for the 17th wheelchair the program has funded.