What to Do with Old Bleach Bottles?

[PoolDoc]

Maybe someone else will post with a creative solution to the empty jug problem.

(from Re: Sodium Dichlor triazetene??? )

Sell them on Ebay to cat-fishermen using trot-lines?

Actually, this question has been asked a number of times, and probably deserves some serious consideration.

The bottles themselves can be recycled, in many areas.

I just checked the ones here, and they are HDPE*. Probably that's true of all of them. You can look on the bottom for the triangular symbol

and the "HTPE". Most large, and many medium, cities have a center for collecting re-cycle-able plastics.

Here's a page, from the state of NY, about distinguishing types of plastics. And, another one, from the doe.gov

Before you return them, you should rinse all them twice in the pool (fill with a cup of pool water, cap, shake, empty into the pool, repeat), and remove as much of the label as is practical. You can the squash the bottle, and stash them in some giant black leaf or trash bags, till you're going near a recycle center.

Do NOT recycle the cap -- it's not HDPE, and is impractical to recyle.

There's something else to consider, however. "Sometimes it takes more energy to recycle plastics than it does to use all new materials" (DOE). And, it may be important to know that the Berkeley, California "Plastics Task Force" is against plastic recycling - they want you to use glass! (But, they probably don't want you to have a pool in the first place.)


* * * * * * * *

There is another idea for using them.

Many private and public agencies, are encouraging people to stockpile enough food and water for a month or more. The reasons include a recognition that Katrina-like disasters are inevitiable for all sorts of reasons, including changing weather, terrorists, the San Andreas OR New Madrid faults, or even a bird flu epidemic. Chlorine bottles are inherently sterile when you empty them. You might want to rinse once with tap water, refill, and then add 2 - 3 drops of bleach back in, before storing. A couple hundred of these, stored under your house, might be very helpful sometime in the next five years. If you do this, you might want to date them, and then sample one of the oldest every so often, to check for problems. Also if you fill them only 3/4 full, the bottles are much more likely to survive freeze-thaw cycles.

If you want to think more about the preparation concept, here are two CDC pages:

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/outbreaks/current.htm
http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/tab3.html

Maybe others have better ideas!

Ben
"PoolDoc"

* High Density Polyetheylene



Ben