Hey. Figured this might be the best place to ask this. I found a very old bottle of nic, 100mg/ml. It is oxidized to shit and completely unusable. The bottle has maybe 10ml left in it. I want to dispose of this properly, as there's no way in hell I'm flushing it down the drain. How do I deal with this?
It's 10 ml of 10% nicotine... throw it down the sink. I'm willing to bet that everyone here advising to take it to a pharmacy medical waste bin has sent gallons of ejuice with nicotine in it that they didn't like, or was old, down their kitchen sink. No one with an old bottle of ejuice takes it to a pharmacy to get rid of. They dump it in the kitchen sink, or throws it in the trash.
I work at a waste water treatment plant, we process between 6 and 14 million gallons of wastewater a day. 1 milliliter of pure nicotine in the system is squat. One single rainstorm will wash thousands of cigarette butts that people drop on the streets containing nicotine through the storm drains, and to the waste water plant.
You'll do more damage to the environment driving your car to the pharmacy than disposing 1 ml of pure nicotine in the toilet.
If you're that worried about it, send it to me. I'll put it in my septic tank.
here's a comment I found on a thread about this from 6 years ago.
"Pour it down the drain and flush with hot water. It's no worse than any of a dozen or more household cleaners and such that get flushed everyday.
As a side note it amazes me how everybody in DIY is so freaked out about nicotine liquid. Here's something that at 25% of the concentration you're worried about people are purposely breathing into their lungs.
"oh no I got some on my finger" yeah well wash it off. "oh no I got some on my kitchen counter" yeah well wipe it up.
We're not talking about a deadly radioactive isotope here. In the form we all use it, it's a mild stimulant with the ability to make you dizzy and maybe puke in if ingested in sufficient quantities. Relax."
everyone seemed in agreement with him.
I'm not sure exactly what the right thing to do is here, but the part about household cleaners seems sound. if you're still worried then dispose of it in a safer way like some other comments have stated.
Thank you for not putting nicotine down the drain, as it is not removed by wastewater treatment plants, and is extremely harmful to aquatic wildlife.
If you're in the US, go to https://www.epa.gov/hw/household-hazardous-waste-hhw and click the button to search for free hazardous waste collection programs near you.
Unfortunately I'm in Sweden. A bit of a drive for some nic disposal.
I don't know the Swedish words for "household hazardous waste collection", but I'm sure if you type it into google along with your location, you'll find some places where you can drop it off for safe disposal.
(edit: clarified ambiguity)
If it's not some outrageous amount of 5L+, just dilute it with water and flush it down the drain. It's just an insecticide that has been used as such for a very very long time and will do no harm to the sewer systems.
No. If taking it to a hazardous waste collection point is too much trouble, throwing the closed bottle in the trash is better than putting nicotine down the drain.