On Jan 6, 2014, at 1:21 AM, David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> wrote:
I'm sure many of you reuse medicine bottles for keeping small things like fasteners,
passive electronic components, etc. I'm sure you also will throw away lots of bottles
rather than peeling off the labels because the process can be slow and leave messy
partially-delaminated paper, and stickum all over. Here's something I learned
recently from my pharmacist: A prescription label will come off cleanly if you try to take
it off within a couple days after being stuck on the bottle. So when you get your meds
home, take the label off, stick it on your forehead, then put it back on the bottle. When
the bottle is empty, the label will peel off cleanly and easily. Skin oils do the magic.
This is also helpful for more secure destruction of the label.
For things that you can soak, PBW (Powdered Brewery Wash) gets off all
KINDS of things you wouldn't expect to be able to easily remove. Aside
from normal cleaning, I give beer bottles an overnight
soak in the
stuff to cleanly remove the labels and adhesive in preparation for
receiving homebrew. If you need to do a whole bunch of medicine
bottles or the like at once, it can be a relatively headache-free way
to do the job, as long as your items can withstand a soak.
- Dave