How to Rinse Out Empty Liquid Soap Container?

[kaneohe]

How to clean so can recycle empty plastic bottle. Suds seem to last forever.

 

[pb4uski]

What if you put it in the sink, fill with water and let water continue to flow into it for a minute or so?...suds will rise to the top and flow over the top and into the sink.

 

[Newventurer]

What if you put it in the sink, fill with water and let water continue to flow into it for a minute or so?...suds will rise to the top and flow over the top and into the sink.

+1, my FIL the expert recycler taught me this one. He even cleans out the peanut butter jars

 

[sengsational]

Don't waste the water. Fill it 1/4 full, shake, dump and toss.

Not true with foods, though, since that attracts pests to my bin. Those need the visible food removed.

 

[kaneohe]

Thanks for those creative ideas! May take a while to get complete results as I am reluctant to waste that water too. Thought if put just a bit in, I could shake it up to wash everywhere, then let the suds settle overnite and pour gently out to get rid of most of the suds. No go.........the suds cling to the wall and each other and fill the whole bottle after pouring out the liquid. More work to do...................

 

[ivinsfan]

I usually have water in my sink at the end of the day for counter wiping,pans, and such.
I plug my sink and use the empty bottle to make some suds. Then tip it over and just let in lay in the sink and fill with water. Pick it up and empty and refill it a few times..good enough. I save my bottles about 6 small ones and refill them from a gallon jug of soap so I am not constantly using new bottles.

 

[ERD50]

Contact your recycler. I'd bet they don't care about a little soap residue. They probably use detergent to get rid of any oils/grease in the other bottles, and it might help them do their job.

well, here's the first hit from google (emph mine):

Any package containing soap (dishwasher detergent, shampoo, laundry detergent, hand soap, etc.) should not be rinsed. In fact, some plastic recyclers rely on residual soap to clean the plastics during reprocessing. After all, it is important to reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Rinsing does not need to be perfect. Don’t worry about getting every single spot of residue off, because that uses a lot of water. Just splash that salsa jar with a little water, replace the lid, and it’s ready to go.

Like Couch Potato investments, sometimes the simplest approach is the best!

-ERD50

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Uh...it's already "clean", so why would you rinse it out? The whole point of rinsing is to get the big chunks off/out of the item.

 

[Chuckanut]

I seem to recall an article from several years ago that materials like plastic and metals where heated in the recycling process to a temperature that is high enough to burn off small amounts of residue.

IMHO, some of the worst environmental offenders are people who are fanatics about recycling. A former neighbor would get labels off of her jars by putting them in the sink and running the hot water over the jar for 10-15 minutes. Another person insisted on recycling paper and cardboard that was covered with grease and food waste. When told that such materials were not recycle-able her response was "Well, they better recycle this!". She was in complete denial of the fact that her foolishness was actually undoing a lot of the good since here contaminated paper products were contaminating more paper products in the recycling chain.

Then there is this reason not to put to much effort into cleaning out items to be recycled:

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/09/568797388/recycling-chaos-in-u-s-as-china-bans-foreign-waste

As mounds of goods are compressed into 1-ton bales, he points out some: a roll of linoleum, gas cans, a briefcase, a surprising number of knitted sweaters. Plus, there are the frozen food cartons and plastic bags that many people think are recyclable but are not.

For decades, China has sorted through all this and used the recycled goods to propel its manufacturing boom. Now it no longer wants to, so the materials sits here with no place to go.

 

[Jerry1]

I am reluctant to waste that water

I’ve never fully understood that concept of wasting water. How is it wasted? It doesn’t vanish. It just goes down the sink. Usually goes into a municipal system that “cleans” it and then it’s back in the system/environment.

As others have said, quick rinse and be done. Food seems to be the bigger problem. Now that China is not accepting our waste plastic, maybe we’ll do better with recycling. I’m of the general belief that recycling just create two landfills as I can imagine most of that stuff is actually recycled. Especially since we (in our area) went to one bin/unsorted recycling.

 

[Blueskies123]

I’ve never fully understood that concept of wasting water. How is it wasted? It doesn’t vanish. It just goes down the sink. Usually goes into a municipal system that “cleans” it and then it’s back in the system/environment.

As others have said, quick rinse and be done. Food seems to be the bigger problem. Now that China is not accepting our waste plastic, maybe we’ll do better with recycling. I’m of the general belief that recycling just create two landfills as I can imagine most of that stuff is actually recycled. Especially since we (in our area) went to one bin/unsorted recycling.

It is very expensive to pump, filter, and chlorinate water to your house and then pump it back to the water treatment plant. It is expensive to treat water at the water treatment plant and then dispose of the brown water.

 

[Blueskies123]

To minimize water waste I fill the bottle about 10% full, shake, and then let stand upside down for a while over the sink drain. It stands up by itself over the disposal. Sometime I forget it is there and it drains for a few hours.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I worked on a project for a small recycling operation about 20 years ago. They would chop up the plastic into dime sized pieces then wash it in big drums. I didn’t get any more information but it was interesting to watch and I think they added some soap to it. FWIW, my $0.02.

 

[Amethyst]

I wash gym togs, bras, and silk blouses by hand. Anything with elastic benefits from being hand-washed.

If the detergent bottle is empty, I fill it with water, shake, and use the sudsy water to wash a basin of clothes.

Don't waste the water. Fill it 1/4 full, shake, dump and toss.

Not true with foods, though, since that attracts pests to my bin. Those need the visible food removed.

 

[Rianne]

I water down the soap and keep using it.

 

[PO579]

Multiple rinses with smaller amounts of water will do better than a few rinses with a lot of water.

Fill it with a little bit of water, shake, dump, and repeat 20 or so times until the soap is gone.

 

[kaneohe]

and the winner is..........ERD50. Called the recycling company...they said just best you can....a small amt of residue is ok. Also trying the long distance upside down drain to see if the suds drain out. When they block the entrance completely I can expel some of it by squeezing the bottle and forcing the air to push some of it out until the bubbles break. Maybe a more gentle sqeeze would work better.

 

[target2019]

I water down the soap and keep using it.

Bingo!

 

[joeea]

Don't waste the water. Fill it 1/4 full, shake, dump and toss.

That wastes the soap!

Fill it 1/4 full, shake, use until gone, then recycle.

 

[sengsational]

That wastes the soap!

Fill it 1/4 full, shake, use until gone, then recycle.

You're right! But ERD50's solution (and mine, which leaves soap in the bottle), doesn't mean soap is wasted...the recycler counts on it to clean the greasy plastic.