Washing and sanitizing old juice bottles

[~Mary23]

It took me a while, but I came up with a method for cleaning the multitudes of empty ejuice bottles I end up with. If you have a better process, let me know!

I keep all empty dirties in a big Tupperware canister shaped container until it gets almost full or I need the bottles right away. I heat distilled water in Pyrex measuring cups and pour into medium to large bowls. In one, I put the droppers and the lids to soak. After the droppers and lids soak for a while, I move them to another clean bowl of hot distilled water to rinse. For a final rinse, I put them in warm distilled water with Steramine sanitizer. You put a tablet in a gallon of distilled water and let it dissolve. The water turns blue, you soak the items for 1 minute, then set aside to dry. Great stuff. I got mine on ebay.

The bottles I rinse in the faucet, then put in a large bowl of hot water with dish detergent to soak. I scrape, peel, or otherwise get the labels off, then rinse under the faucet. I do two hot water rinses in distilled water like the droppers/lids above, then do a 1 minute Steramine soak and place on a rack to dry. If the labels are stubborn and don't want to come off, I just leave them soaking in the hot soapy water for a few days. They come off eventually. I do a quick smell of the bottles when I take them out of the Steramine solution. If I can still smell a flavor, I put it back in the Steramine solution to soak longer. Only once have I had to throw a bottle away b/c I couldn't get the smell out!

Be careful with the hard plastic bottles that the water is not too hot. Melted some last week this way.

I can clean 40-50 bottles this way in about an hour. I use multiple Pyrex measuring cups to keep the distilled water heating constantly in the microwave. Usually I end up with some bottles that have stubborn labels. If they aren't my favorite bottles I just toss them. If they are my faves, I get the Goo Gone out but am careful not to get any inside my bottle.

I use a drying rack so my bottles dry quickly. You can find drying racks in some sewing sections (used for storing thread spools) or in baby supplies.

Hope this helps somebody! Cleaned, empty bottles are great to have around.

PS: In case you think you don't need a bottle of 150 tablets of Steramine to wash juice bottles, you can use this in a sprayer to disinfect when you don't want to use Clorox (got some for my pregnant daughter for this reason), use it on your dinnerware, glassware, and tableware when you don't want spots when you have guests...and I like to disinfect certain containers that I don't use as often or that I haven't used in a while.

[geekdgirl]

Thanks a lot for posting this Mary, exactly what I was looking for

[jscott1]

neat! Good tip, thank you!!

[Spliner]

Thank you Mary!

I'll have to look some of that stuff up on ebay. I had been using hot distilled water for the new bottles, but I generally don't re-use them at all these days as I buy them in batches of a 100 or more. Great tip on the drying racks!

Spliner