Why are the pull tabs on cans designed so that half of them are submerged in liquid when opened?

It's true that most of the canned beverage sodas you buy when you walk down the street these days, whether it's in a store or a vending machine, have a one-piece opening. Not the split pull-tabs that used to be the most common.

Previously, most of the pull ring, pull straight open, pull ring and cans are two parts, combined together. Pulling it up is smooth, but it creates a trash. It may cause environmental hazards if thrown anywhere. Moreover, the opening is sharp, so if you are not careful, you will cut your fingers and skin. Some children will play with the pull ring or put it in their mouths, but in any case, it is still a safety hazard. In those days, when the ring was pulled down, there was no place to throw it, so I had to put it back into the can after drinking it.

Nowadays, the pull-tabs are mostly integrated with the cans, and you need to press half of them into the liquid before you open them. Of course the advantage of this is that it does not produce excess waste, pull ring and cans are connected together, open the lid do not have to pull off the pull ring, but as part of the can. In this way, there will be no pull ring injury, or children accidentally swallowed the pull ring. But we also can't ignore the disadvantage that half of the ring needs to be immersed in liquid, which can cause secondary contamination. After all, beverages and so on are directly in the mouth to drink, do not need to be warmed up and heated and so on. In the process of transportation, it is inevitable that the mouth of the bottle will be contaminated, and if the open cap pull ring is directly immersed in the liquid, there will be a certain security risks.

So, there are pros and cons, but since the designers still chose to do this, it must have been a weighing decision. Of course, before we drink these canned drinks ourselves, it's best to wipe the mouth of the bottle with a napkin and pull the ring to make sure it's safe to enter.