For many people, having an excess of plastic pill bottles would mean a full trash can, but for one family, it simply meant more storage.
The scoop
TikToker Brooke Prince (@brookprince_) posted a video showing how her dad repurposed the orange plastic bottles.
"If you grew up with a chronic illness or any illness really, you might relate to recycling your medicine bottles," she says in the video.
Entering her dad's work area, she demonstrates how he screwed several of the white bottle caps onto the underside of a shelf. He then filled the orange bottles with various working tools — screws, wrenches, hot glue sticks — and fitted them snugly into place, screwed into their mounted caps. And voila — he now has what is essentially floating storage.
@brookeprince_ Pill bottles= great containers for building /craft supplies. #crohnsdisease #crohnsawareness #ibd #chronicillness #ibdawareness #chronicillnessawareness #chronicallyonline #pillbottle #reuse #recycle ♬ What a Wonderful World - Hana
How it's working
Pill bottles, while useful, are pesky pieces of plastic. The majority of them aren't recyclable through conventional curbside pickup, per GoodRx. That means that to ensure they are properly recycled, the odds are that you would have to take them to a special facility.
Or you can simply repurpose them instead and extend their life, keeping them out of landfills. People have shared hacks for using pill bottles to carry single servings of salad dressing, pack matches for a camping trip, and even transport small amounts of laundry detergent in order to avoid having to lug entire jugs to a laundromat.
You can even donate the bottles to organizations like Matthew 25: Ministries, which redistributes them to places around the world where they are needed (and where they are far less abundant).
Given that the world is already drowning in plastic, anything that keeps plastic out of landfills is a step in the right direction. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, nearly half a billion (460 million) metric tons of plastic are produced each year. Those new plastics pile on top of the existing ones, leaching toxic chemicals into landfills, rivers, and oceans and threatening nearly every link in the global food chain.
What people are saying
Because most people have experienced the conundrum of tossing out a used bottle, commenters were thrilled to have a better idea of what to do with them. "This is so smart!" one person enthused.
"Great way to reuse," another agreed. "Another option…mason jars, pasta sauce jars, pickle jars, and even baby food jars (the old school glass kind) work as well. Screw lid under workbench/craft shelf and tada!"
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