I usually toss my empty prescription bottles in the recycling bin, but I recently learned that Portland Metro only accepts plastic containers that are 6 oz or larger. This rules out all of my prescription bottles, so I looked for alternatives. Here’s what I learned:
6 oz or Larger Bottles
If your prescription bottle is 6 oz, you’re set. You don’t even have to check the number on the bottom. All you have to do is rinse out the inside if it is dirty, and toss it in your blue co-mingled recycling bin. You can’t toss the lid in with it, but I will save that for another post.
Typical Prescription Bottle
If your prescription bottle is smaller than 6 oz and looks like this, then it is probably #5 plastic (polypropylene). Even though we can’t toss these in the curbside recycling bins, we have a bunch of options to make sure these don’t end up in the landfill.
- Preserve Gimme 5 Program
#5 plastic is good quality plastic. Preserve collects empty prescription bottles and other #5 plastic containers to turn them into products such as toothbrushes and food storage containers. There are several collection boxes located inside of Whole Foods stores in Portland to drop off your bottles. If you don’t live in Portland, click here to find your dropoff location.
Important: Before you bring them to the dropoff location, remove the labels. The best way to do this is to soak the bottle in hot water and then scrape the label off. You can only drop off the lids if they are stamped with #5.
- Far West Fibers
Far West Fibers has several recycling drop off depots in Portland. Far West Fibers is able to process many items that the normal curbside service cannot. You can bring your clean and de-labeled bottles to any of the locations listed. They accept all plastic bottles #1 – #7, so you can also drop off your over-the-counter bottles, marked #2. They also accept plastic lids, so bring those, too!
Locations:
NE Portland – 12820 NE Marx St. Hours: Mon-Fri: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Sat-Sun: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm
SE Portland – 4629 SE 17th Ave. Hours: 8:00 am to 4:00 pm daily
N Portland – 2005 N Rosa Parks Way Hours: 9:00 am to 5:00 pm daily
NW Portland – 1520 NW Quimby St. Hours: Tues-Sat 9:00 am to 5:00 pm
Target or Other #1 Bottles
If your bottle is a ClearRx bottle from Target or any other #1 plastic and is under 6 oz, you have a couple options in Portland. You can bring them to the Far West Fibers locations listed above, or you can bring them to Target pharmacies for recycling. Some sources claim that pharmacies can reuse prescription bottles, but the pharmacies I called said they would never do that.
Locations:
NE Portland – 9401 NE Cascade Pkwy.
SE Portland – 9800 SE Washington St.
Clackamas – 9000 SE Sunnyside Rd.
I collect all kinds of non-standard recycling materials and deliver them to Far West Fibers.
Keep up the good work Regina 🙂
Posted by Joshua Anderson | May 2, 2011, 1:17 amFabulous information Regina! I only have one post too. But you’ve gotta start somewhere, girl! This is SUCH good information. I wonder if Whole Foods everywhere accepts these bottles. I always throw mine in the recycling too, because most places won’t refill them for safety reasons I guess. And I can’t wait to find out about the tops! If you find out any other info (outside of Portland) will you pass that on as well? Thanks for doing this!
Posted by jennov75 | May 8, 2011, 2:17 pmHow do I subscribe Regina? I hit the subscribe button and it takes me you your post??!!
Posted by jennov75 | May 11, 2011, 5:32 pmI got it. I subscribed! I figured it out. I get so happy when I figure something out by myself on the computer. MOSTLY because I switched from a PC to a MAC 3 years ago, and I still have absolutely no idea how to do almost anything on it. 😦
Tops—I wanted to ask about tops. I have tons of them. I keep all of them, in hopes that I’ll find some place that magically recycles them. I did find a place on line called Caps-n-Cups that takes all tops hoping to keep them out of the water system. But that’s in Evansville, IN and I’ll have to send them. Have you heard of anything else, anything at all?
Give us some more posts Regina! That last one was so helpful!!
Posted by Jennifer Ward-Pelar | June 17, 2011, 1:21 pm