General waste bin or glass recycle bin or neither?
I have some decade old, gruesome tall thin glasses infested with mold and food residue, cloaked in a grotesque and sticky film of decaying death that… are in no easy way to clean. What to do with them?
I think it might be dangerous to workers when put in the general waste.
Coarse Salt. Add just enough water to move it around + a little dish soap and shake. Works like a charm.
There are ways to clean glass passively, it sounds like your residue is organic.
- acetone, the pure kind you buy in a tin can at the hardware store. it will require some form of sealed container to put the glass in (acetone evaporates quickly and eats almost all organic matter) - finding a container big enough for your glass might be the hard part of this but it works (soak for days, and do not touch acetone with hands or use organic gloves - internet search for proper gloves)
- ZAP heavy duty citrus cleaner, comes in a gallon jug. soak the glass in it for days or longer, doesn’t need a sealed container. This is the same stuff you can use to clean your sink drain and is pretty safe to handle but still, wear basic gloves just in case.
- high-purity (like say 70%) iso alcohol with table salt as an abrasive (standard grocery store things). This is more of for the inside, where you can put in alcohol + salt and seal with your hand and vigorously shake to let the salt scrub the residue and the alcohol to eat it. Uses a lot of alcohol due to it’s evaporation, so buy a bigger jug.
- specialty products found on 420-friendly websites or your local 420-friendly store; weed residue is a thing for bongs, bubblers, pipes and any other sort of smoking apparatus and they need cleaned and are hard to get inside; products are made to soak the glassware in to try and get the junk out. generally expensive and hit or miss on quality but they exist
Hope this helps. (edit: acetate -> acetone, oops) (edit2: 90% -> 70% alcohol per comment)
A note on alcohol as a cleaner:
~~Alcohol is actually a more potent solvent when in solution with water. 70% isopropyl alcohol is so prevalent because it’s actually more effective than higher concentrations. ~~
This does not apply to electronics. You want that 99% to leave as little moisture as possible.
Idk how true that is, it’ll be highly dependent on what you’re trying to dissolve.
This sounds to me more like the advice I’ve heard for using isopropyl for sterilizing equipment and surfaces, its more to do with how quickly the pure stuff evaporates. Evaporate too quickly and it doesn’t sterilize, whereas 70% is best of both worlds.
Furthermore, for sterilization 70% is more effective because the other 30% is water, which helps ensure everything is exposed to isoprop for long enough and bacterial cells take in the isoprop and die (because water passes through the cell membrane, taking isoprop into the cell with it), rather than ‘hunkering down’ and surviving until the solvent is gone
However for cleaning electronics, the water content is bad because it does not dry quickly and can cause corrosion, so 99% is needed
So the percentages have varying uses and should be chosen based on the task at hand
Hmm, I think you’re right about sterilization vs gunk removal. Got those mixed up.
At the quantity the OP might use, buying by the gallon might make more sense - having a look to Amazon, the popular concentrations in gallon+ sizes are 70% and 99.9% (about the same price, $25 USD/gal) - it probably makes more logistical sense to go with 70% here to reduce evaporation and increase usable liquid on these tall, thin objects (so let’s say “sloppy use” of oddly shaped hard to handle glass).
I’ll leave my update at 70% concentration as the more economical choice - I’d presume based on their comment a soak in ZAP ($18 USD/gal) first is needed, then followed by the iso method… so it’s a little expensive no matter what for something they might not care about that much.
bottle brush
Glassware is frequently not recyclable, due to additives during the manufacturing process.
What about the glass jars that are sold with food inside?
Container glass is usually fine. Sometimes dyed glass won’t be accepted or will need to be sorted though.
Just lob it in the bin.
Peroxide and then hypochlorite bleach. Not at the same time. There are products that contain them if you can’t get them neat. In fact I recommend those.
Try the peroxide first. Dilute as necessary. Wipe or spray on. Leave it on for a while to loosen anything and everything it can. After a while fill with hot (60-80C) water, but beware of thermal shock. Leave to stand until warm, not hot. Try to clean the glasses as best you can. This may be all you need.
If not, try the bleach. Same steps, but make sure you’re in a well ventilated area. I’ve found that while it stinks up the place, the mould just peels right off and into the hot bleach solution.
If the glasses smell of bleach afterwards, fill with warm water and leave for a day or two. Repeat as necessary. The bleach will dissipate eventually.
Size depending, an ultrasonic cleaner and alcohol will do the trick. That’s how I clean my glass pipes from resin and debris, and it always comes out spotless with no manual cleaning effort.
Not sure if this is the most environmentally-correct answer, but I’ve usually put old, beyond redemption glassware into a thick bag (like a dog food bag) and sealed it up. Those bags are usually thick enough that even if the glass breaks, it usually won’t break through.
Sealing the glass up in the same bags, I’ve also smashed them to pieces small enough that they’re no longer shards (depends on what i’m throwing away).
Glass is typically able to be cleaned in all but the worst cases, so I don’t throw it away often. Usually it’s when a glass or plate breaks and I don’t want to risk injury to the sanitation workers.
have you tried using bleach or drain cleaner (prills; sodium hydroxide) to clean it
A jet wash will undoubtedly remove whatever gunk is there.
Me, I’d put them in general waste. I might wrap them or put them in a sturdy paper bag if I had any, and put that in a plastic bag to contain the evil.
If you don’t want to attempt cleaning it, you could just bury them outside?
Edit: Everyone didn’t like that.
Keep it on your shelf forever Wrap it in layers of newspaper and toss it out Just clean it. It’s glass. Use an ultrasonic
As the current owner of a 1930’s era property with tons of glass and rubble in the ground, please don’t. We have landfills so that individual properties don’t get filled with trash.
From a scale of 0 to 10 that advice is -3.14.
