What to Do With Empty Pill Bottles

Many people enjoy finding frugal ways to reduce waste. The question of how to reuse empty pill containers yielded dozens of suggestions. I love how creatively people are repurposing this common item. Here is a multitude of ideas I’ve assembled for you. Use them in your car, in your purse, in a sewing kit, while camping, and for a variety of other purposes.

Although prescription bottles are fairly small items, if someone takes multiple medications, they can pile up quickly. Every household in the country probably has some of these orange containers in their medicine cabinet or on their kitchen counter. Tossing the empty ones creates a lot of waste over time.

First Things First

Soak them in warm water to make the labels easier to peel off. Wash the interiors with soapy water. Rinse out the soap and let them air-dry completely. If some of the stickiness remains on the outside, use a product like Goo Gone to remove that. Now you’re ready to repurpose them!

10 Things to Store in Empty Pill Bottles

1. Hairpins

2. Thumb tacks

3. Paper clips

4. Needles (for your sewing kit)

5. Q-tips (when traveling)

6. Jewelry (when traveling)

7. Nails (for the workbench)

8. Quarters (keep a bottle in the car for toll booths)

9. Quarters (keep a bottle with your detergent for washing clothes at the laundromat)

10. Seeds from your flowers (to keep them dry so you can plant them next year)

Five Fun Things to Do With Old Prescription Bottles

• Store your Chuckie Cheese game tokens in them.

• Put some colorful beads in one with a childproof lid. Keep it in your purse for waiting rooms. Let your young child play with it like a rattle. It makes a fun diversion for a parrot or cockatoo also.

• Root some plant cuttings in the window sill.

• Make a gag gift for a retirement party. Fill with M&Ms and make faux prescription labels saying “take one for improving your golf game” or “take daily for energy to get up off the sofa.”

• After thoroughly cleaning them, put them in the kid’s play kit for playing doctor and nurse. It’s probably best not to put anything inside so as not to confuse them about medicine.

Uses for Sewing

• Keep needles in one.

• Store pins in one.

• Make a mini-sewing kit in one with a needle, thread, a spare button, etc. for traveling.

• Sort stray buttons into them for later use.

Uses for Empty Pill Bottles for Travelers or Campers

• Put shampoo in one bottle.

• Put conditioner in another.

• Assemble a miniature first-aid kit in one for your purse, backpack, or car.

• Put matches in one for camping (with a bit of sandpaper on the lid for striking).

• If you find a tick on you, put it in a prescription bottle to take to the doctor to test it for Lyme’s Disease.

• Fill them with seasonings and spices (label them with a Sharpie).

• Make a fire-starter kit for camping. Include dry bits of flammable items such as a cotton ball.

• Make a survival kit for backpacking or to slip into your pocket while walking in the woods (see the video below for what to include).

How to Recycle the Bottles

• Take them back to the pharmacy. Most pharmacies recycle. Some have a charge for recycling them (like 5 cents).

• Save them for your humane society. They get pet meds in bulk and use the bottles for their meds. (Call first to be sure your local society needs them.)

• Check with a local veterinarian to see if they can use them.

• Some churches collect them for use in medical shipments to Africa. Go to Matthew 25 Ministries link to see the instructions and types of pill bottles they need.

• Pill containers are level 5 recyclable, which means some local recycling plants do not want them mixed in with regular plastic. Gimme 5 Recycling takes these containers. Check for drop-off locations near you by clicking on the link. Many of these are at Whole Foods stores.

Check With Other Healthcare Professionals

A school nurse I know collects empty pill bottles and sends them to Haiti. Many areas of Haiti don’t have bottles, so they wrap their medicines in leaves.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2017 Virginia Allain

Of course, a few boxes could be used to store out-of-season items in the garage, but I couldn't use all of them that way, and some were too small for that purpose. Then there were the bags: Some were all-plastic, some were paper with plastic bubble lining, and some were paper padded with paper fill (which Amazon switched to after people complained about the waste). Another issue was the plastic air pillows. What the heck could be done with those?

Read on to find some ways to repurpose and reuse all that packaging clutter from your Amazon orders. Of course, these ideas work for similar packaging from other sellers.

Plastic Amazon Mailing Bags

What can you do with the mailing bags (pouches, envelopes, or whatever you call them)? These ideas work for the white plastic, padded envelopes and also for the tan paper envelopes that are lined with plastic bubbles. Here’s a quick list to get you thinking.

• Give them to someone who is moving. They can put them between their plates for padding as they pack their kitchen items.

• Use them yourself to mail something. Place your own label over their label or turn the bag inside out so it shows plain white. Fold the top down and apply packing tape to seal it securely. The post office does not want people to use staples as they can injure employees.

• Donate a big batch of the mailing bags to someone who sells on eBay, Etsy, or other resale sites.

• Use them for temporary plant pots to give plant starts to friends and neighbors.

• Cut along the seams and open it out to use as a table protector for paint and messy craft projects.

• Use the larger ones as liners for small trash cans around the house.

Reuse Amazon Boxes

• I recycle if the box is too damaged to use again.

• Make a Halloween costume. Check on Pinterest for ideas of costumes made from boxes.

• Make a pet bed by cutting one side of the box lower, add a cushion, drape a sheet or towel over it all.

• Store things in them so you don’t need to buy those plastic storage tubs.

• Ship things in them.

• Give them to someone who is moving. (Advertise the boxes on your local Buy Nothing group, FreeCycle, or NextDoor Neighbors)

• Give them to someone locally who sells crafts on Etsy or is a reseller on eBay and other sites.

• Cardboard can serve as mulch in your garden. If the packaging is made of biodegradable materials, such as paper, it can be added to your compost pile.

Reuse the Brown Paper Padding

Smooth out and flatten the brown paper used to cushion things in the boxes. Later, you can wrap gifts in it for Christmas. Tie with twine or yarn. Then tuck a piece of evergreen from your landscaping under the twine for an accent. Classic!

Reuse Air Pillows

Cut all the way down one side of a batch of air pillows, then separate them. They are perforated to easily pull apart from the adjacent pillow. Take them along on your walks for doggie-poop bags.

Giving Away the Boxes

Other people may not have as many boxes as you do, so share yours. Don’t toss those boxes.

My neighbor was moving to Gulf Shores so I toted all my boxes over to her house for several weeks. She might be sorry she moved as she got there just in time for two hurricanes.

A friend had a son living in California. She needed lots of boxes to send his stuff from Florida out to the West Coast. I shudder at the mailing costs but at least she got her boxes free from me.

In the past, I’ve advertised the free boxes on NextDoor Neighbors and usually, they are all gone within a few hours. I put them out by the curb, so the people don’t have to come to my door. Easy for them and no bother for myself. Once the boxes are gone, I remove my free ad from the site. Some people want larger boxes for moving but others can use the smaller boxes if they are sellers on eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, or Amazon.

Choose “Fewest Packages” During Checkout

There’s a button in the payment area of Amazon that asks if you want the fewest packages or the quickest shipping. Choose “fewest packages” if you are trying to cut back on accumulating boxes and mailing envelopes.

Keep That Bubble Wrap!

Save the bubble wrap to store your Christmas ornaments or to use in the future when you mail something.

Repurposing the Plastic Bags

I turn the bag inside out and cut off the top half. It works great to store recipe booklets or health information, etc.

Share in the comments your own tips for reusing packaging.

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