The goal is to get rid of flavors so that you can reuse your bottles, save some money and protect the environment. I have read a lot of bullshit while researching how to properly clean your plastic bottles, from putting your bottles in the dishwasher to messing with soapy baths in your sink. NO!
I don't want to get into the debate of "Plastic vs. Glass", because it's pretty much personal preference. While glass bottles do not hold on to flavor, the rubber top does. So there's that.
The problem with plastic bottles (PET, LDPE) is that they breathe and hold on to flavor. If you put a different juice in these rinsed bottles, the old flavor residuals (tiny molecules stuck in plastic) will leach into your new juice and ruin it. But you don't have to dispose of them if you clean them properly. I will admit that some flavors such as citrus (e.g., papaya, VT Fizzy Sherbet, etc.) or tobaccos are particularly bad offenders and you won't have an easy time getting rid of the flavor.
Here's what works for me, it's inexpensive, almost no work and is effective.
- Rinse bottles with water to get rid of old juice.
- Put hot tap water in a bowl and add 1 tablespoon baking soda to 1 liter of water, stir for 10 secs until dissolved.
- Throw bottles in the bowl, squeeze under water to completely fill them with the solution.
- Let sit for 24 hours, then dispose the solution.
- Put fresh tap water in the bowl and rinse bottles by, gain, squeezing under water and then dispose of the water.
This is really low effort and will get the job done in most of the cases.
What about safety you ask? Baking soda will create a weak alkaline solution. In that regard it's pretty similar to soap water. Some people take baths in baking soda solutions, some drink a baking soda solution every morning to de-acidify the body. I haven't found solid information what happens when you vape that stuff, but after rinsing your bottles properly, the residual is minimal.
I hope this saves the planet.
I'd like to point out that attempting to change the accidity of your body is a very dangerous prospect and drinking water with baking soda will at the most change the accidity of your pee and not the majority of your body chemistry. just in case anyone gets any smart ideas
I think it does a little more than that. I found this pretty interesting. https://youtu.be/ORa0OybvK90 Also talks about Sodium Bicarbonate in nebulized form in the context of medical treatment.
>messing with soapy baths in your sink. NO!
Just to play devil's a-hole, have a read of this and let me know your thoughts OP.
Does this work with silicon squonk bottles too?
Asking the real questions here. My squonk bottles smell gross and I cannot get the stains and smell out.
I seriously don't get people throwing away their eliquid bottles
I seriously don't get people not throwing them away. Bottles are cheap. Maybe reuse a 120ml chubby gorilla, if you're making another batch of the same flavor, but after two or three times the bottle isn't gonna be much use. Smaller bottles are cheap...
I've reused some bottles 50+ times and they are still good. Yeah they're cheap, but for me I almost always chose to spend that $4.50 on a new flavor instead of 10 new 10ml bottles. Yeah you can never have enough bottles but you can never have enough flavors either...almost time to build another custom flavor cabinet!
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I prefer plastic because they are just easier to use. Glass dropper bottles can be messy. My SO and I both have a go to every day flavor. We stick to the same bottle until they wear out and just wash them between uses. After rinsing them with hot water, I use a cheap vodka to rinse the inside then run it under water again. Usually works well.
I use both but prefer glass without the droppers. Some squonk bottles fit exactly inside the neck of the glass one, if not it's still very quick to simply pour it in unless you have some retarded squonking system like the new Battlestar squonker.
If I'm about to vape a 100ml from a plastic bottle I'll remove the tip until the bottle is done. Refill 10x faster.
My fiancé has issues with pushing the tip off plastic bottles while refilling which causes a huge mess. It hasn’t happened to me so I guess he’s just uses more force. I like the soft plastic ones over the harder clear bottles. Glass is much easier to refill so that makes a big difference. Even with a funnel, plastic is a pain because the suction prevents the juice from flowing. I’m afraid to take the tip off because it seems like it would leak. I will have to check out the bottles you are talking about.
Definitive guide:
10 Use bottle.
20 Throw out empty bottle, grab new bottle.
30 GOTO 10
40 kill the environment
'Tis but a scratch on the enviroment.
I would argue it's a cost-issue, rather..
Scratch by scratch, accumulated, can make some real damage as we can see today. Horrible plastic polution because everyone thinks their waste is insignificant. So... who makes the first step to stop scratching if everyone thinks their waste is just a little insignificant scratch?
I've got a quicker solution, but it probably isn't quite as effective.
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Rinse bottle, fill with white vinegar and let it sit for a minute then empty, rinse again, pour in brewed coffee, let sit for 10 minutes, then empty and rinse again. If someone wished, they could stir baking soda into water to fill it and let it sit for about an hour if there is still any persistent aroma left over.
Interesting read, thanks! Ill definitely give this a try. I use glass bottles mostly, but if I could clean the plastic bottles I have, I'd use them.
Another flavor I'd say might be impossible to clean is mint. My main ADV is a strong Double-Mint/Spearmint mix, and I've never even gotten close to removing that smell/taste from plastic bottles.
I've never had trouble with glass though. But I never turn the dropper upside down or let the juice get up inside the rubber top of the dropper.
Yea there are definitely limits to what cleaning can do to plastic bottles. I try to reuse bottles for a juice that has a similar flavor profile, e.g., put my tobacco juices into bottles that still smell a little tobaccoy.
Yup I've been doing the same. I mix my batches in glass, but when I'm gonna be away from home all day or longer I fill some 30 or 60ml plastic bottles and keep my mint flavors in previously used mint bottles, fruits in similarly flavored bottles, and creams in similarly flavored bottles. I'll definitely try your cleaning method though, maybe it'll give me a few more usable bottles.
I know it's personal preference but you did go there. For your use just get glass. I'm bored of custards, vanillas, bakeries ATM and focused on fruits which are all mostly shake and vape so I mix small one shot flavor extracts into small batches by weight into small Erlenmeyer flasks with rubber corks, enough to vape in 3 days tops and it allows for alot of subtle experimentation. You need a decent scale and easier dropper bottles for 10ml batches.
I make my own beer, so cleaning stuff is pretty normal, and there is much conversation of what to clean things with amongst brewers. For my juice bottles I always start with rinsing with cold water, so I try and get the surface juice off without warming and opening up the plastic. After that I put them all in a stainless steel pan, with a metal steamer at the bottom, with water up to the bottom of the steamer, so the bottles dont touch the bottom of the pan and melt. I put all the bottles in upside down, then heat the water and just let them steam for 10-20 minutes. Similar to many breweries and how i clean my beer bottles (for that I use the dishwasher). I have one cautionary tale, after rinsing with the cold water I once used sodium percarbonate, my beer cleaner, since this is meant to be safe and sprayed some in weak solution inside each plastic bottle and again rinsed them this time with hot water, then i did my boil/steam to sterilise open the plastic and clean them. The juice i made in those bottles was tainted with something evil and I ended up throwing the juice and the bottles out. I just steam them now and am very wary of opening the plastic up with heat and having anything else in the mix that the bottles can pick up.