I’ve got some empty medication bottle built up that I want to finally get rid of. Is there an easy and efficient way to get the labels off before I chuck them? The local pharmacies don’t seem to offer a service to do it for me, since these bottles are empty.
Thanks in advance.
Grab a permanent black marker and cross out all the sensitive information?
I realize that with hours of work and the right tools somebody might be able to decipher the information you crossed out. After they fished the bottles out of the city dump. But do you really have such determined enemies who want to know what drugs you are using?
How many bottles are you talking about?
Would dropping them into a bucket of hot water a quart of bleach added do the trick of dissolving / bleaching the labels enough to render them unreadable?
If not totally removed, after a day like that I would imagine quick wipe with a kitchen scouring pad would be enough to render the label illegible
I just put my empty bottles (and any leftover medication) in with the dirty cat litter. Unless you live in an area filled with addicts, no one’s looking into the bag of cat shit.
I can’t imagine caring enough to do anything but put them in the recycling or the trash. If I was a celebrity trying to hide a prescription narcotic habit that might be different. But for ordinary schlubs like us? Meh.
I run the labels under the tap for a moment and then a quick swipe with a rag takes off the top layer of the label with the printed information.
Sure, nobody is going through my garbage or recycling, but I still don’t want my prescription containers with my name, address, and type of medication sitting out by the curb.
Yeah, nobody’s ever really explained to me how someone getting hold of an empty lisinopril prescription bottle of mine would actually benefit them and put me in any kind of jeopardy.
Maybe my old norco prescription bottles from after my knee surgery, but even those require a doctor call before refills, so that’s not too handy either.
Soak empty bottle in water overnight.
Scrape label off easily with knife or fingernail.
That’s what I always do.
I also do it this way. I have a small plastic up that my pill bottles will fit in. put water in the pill bottle (to weight it down) and then put the pill bottle in the cup and add enough water to the cup to cover the label
I just recycle them with the other plastic. At the recycling center, the paper gets removed anyway.
I rip the upper left corner off in lieu of the entire label as that’ll remove enough of the pertinent info as to then be undecipherable and then the plastic into our recycling bin.
Disposal???
Re-use them!
There are all kinds of uses for little bottle like that, all around the house & garage.
And who cares if people see the labels? What could they do with that info?
There’s a website devoted to the number of celebrity women Derek Jeeter has supposedly given herpes to and the subsequent lovers they’ve had, usually celebrities too, that are now infected. Claims often include mention they’ve been confirmed by the medicines they had prescriptions for, often verified in their trash.
It may not be commonplace but it does happen.
As someone who has worked around computers for decades and tried over and over to instill basic security common sense into people, this statement just reminds me why computer viruses are all over the place.
You get rid of the labels on your medicine bottles because it is a really smart thing to do. Just because you can’t think of a reason is no excuse.
I have too many to really find uses for.
A pharmacist told me that because the bottles are used for medication, they will be rejected for recycling.
Point taken, however since the chances of me ever sleeping with ANY celebrity are somewhere between “Hell No” and Are you fucking kidding me", I’m not real worried. Throw them in the darn garbage. I can’t believe anyone could posibly care about my prescriptions, where I live, or who my Doc is. Very, VERY few people are that damn interesting. 
I used to soak & peel, but thought about it one day and abandoned the practice.
Hey everyone, I’m on blood pressure and cholesterol meds.
There, I just saved you the trouble of pawing through my garbage.
mmm
Your pharmacist is rather silly. Your recycling goes to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF) where it is just piled into a mountain of mixed stuff. From there, front loaders shovel it onto a conveyer belt where it gets passed into all sorts of screens, rotating discs and drums, air currents, and magnetic fields to try to sort it. Nobody, but nobody is going to carefully examine your little bottle and say “Hmmm. I think this once held medicine. I shall reject it.”
In any case, let them reject it, it’s not your concern.
Some videos to show you how recycling actually works. If you’ve never seen one, it’s worth watching:
https://youtu.be/0MeAUxSduUY?t=2m7s (start at 2:07)
The stage at which they sort plastic bottles starts at 7:30.
Hm, well, inspired by this reply, I Googled. According to Consumer Reports three years ago, the problem isn’t with residue, as I’d assumed, but because the small size bottles are awfully close to the size of debris that gets filtered out.
The quoted expert says specifically to not recycle unless you know the plant can handle that size, but does it really make a difference if I just chuck them anyway?
Looking further, my municipality recycling website specifically says it can recycle non prescription bottles, but no info for prescription bottles. Hm.
I take a boxcutter and make 4 or so vertical cuts, about 0.75mm apart across the important part (name etc.). Then they’re easier to peel.