What to do with glassware that is impossible to clean

dysprosium@lemmy.dbzer0.com to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 49 points –

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.

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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. ~~

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.

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.

my bong has a bunch of crevices/nooks that get gunked up with resin n' such. Put in some salt, a healthy splash of alcohol, and shake it up! you'll be surprised how much that gets.

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.

I have this little glass condenser tube that is a pain in the ass to clean. I have not thought about getting an ultrasonic cleaner. Do your pipes lay horizontally in your ultrasonic cleaner or stand vertically?

I put the pipe into a baggie and cover in iso alcohol. I put water in my ultrasonic cleaner and then put the baggie in the water. My cleaner has an option to heat the water, and I do that because I think it helps, but not necessary. Then a 6 minute cycle, I'll dump the alcohol, fill with water and run a short cycle to rinse everything well. Then just manually rinse everything off until I'm good. Sometimes after the first cycle, I'll take the baggie out and give it a good aggressive shake, and run a second round just to make sure.

I use a mighty vaporizer most of the time, so I'm usually cleaning the capsules and mouthpiece, but I do my pipe at the same time, so it usually doesn't get a big tar ball between cleanings. The first time I used it, I had a peanut M&M sized ball that didn't desolve, but everything else washed free, so it was loose inside. I put my air hose nozzle on the mouth, a quick blast in the trash, and it was done.

A lot of people recommend little jewelry cleaners which I think are under $50, but I grabbed a larger one from harbor freight for a little over $80 and I think it was the right choice. I have a glass bubbler attachment for my vape that gets gnarly on the inside, and it's kind of long and wouldn't fit in a smaller cleaner.

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.

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.

Probably depends on where you live but if its gross just put it in the garbage. If you are concerned about the workers safety, put it in a box and fill the box with other trash so it doesn't present a danger. Not all glass can be recycled even if its put into the recycling bin. But even glass that is not recyclable can be used for lots of other things. One of the cool things I discovered a bunch of years ago is that junk glass that isn't recyclable can be used to capturing methane from old landfill (they create a thick layer of crushed glass on the top of the old landfill and then cover that with a membrane and then they can suck the gas that is stuck between the glass layer and the membrane.)

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.

Strong acid, strong base. Bake at 500C over night if it's borosilicate to bake off all organics. It won't get much cleaner than that.

A jet wash will undoubtedly remove whatever gunk is there.

Put them in the glass recycling. This might be different from your general recycling bin.

To recycle glass they break it down into tiny shards, it gets industrially cleaned and then melted and formed into new glassware.

Glass doesn't has to be clean to be able to be recycled, just mostly separated into colours.

I'm not sure this is the correct thing to do. Around here they say that only container glass can go into the glass recycling because the composition of other glass can be different...

call your local recycling center and ask. Seriously, they'll usually be very happy to help you, especially if you're asking something like this. Most people never bother to check what is and isn't supposed to be sent to them.

Here's the thing. Glass is damn near infinitely recyclable in theory. It, however, isn't usually economically realistic, so it varies a lot from location to location whether or not it actually gets recycled. A lot of it ends up in local landfills.

But, bleach will kill off anything that would be a problem. Mix up a 1:10 solution, soak that shit, then let it air dry thoroughly. Won't be anything left on it that's dangerous.

Coarse Salt. Add just enough water to move it around + a little dish soap and shake. Works like a charm.

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.