How can I reuse or recycle … anti-perspirant bottles?

Anti-perspirant roll-on bottlesWe flipped to roll-on ones from aerosol anti-perspirants for environment reasons - both big, out-there environment (the aerosol bit) and little, in-here environment (the spray quickly made the bathroom unpleasant as it deodorised your lungs) - but now we’re left with lots of roll-on bottles instead.

I suspect the bottle and the ball are different types of plastic so am wary to throw them in the recycling bin - anyone know if they can be recycled? Does it help if you pop the ball out first?

But better than that, are there any reuses for them? Either complete or in parts.

And what about stick deodorant containers (the narrower, ball-less ones)?


12 Responses to “How can I reuse or recycle … anti-perspirant bottles?”


  1. LisaP says:

    fill them with a mixture of glue and glitter to make glitter pens for kids. Add a few drops of food colouring too. The glue has to be quite thin though.

    You can probably make the flour glue from the other article, but make it really thin.

  2. sarar says:

    I keep too in my stationery cabinet at work, one filled with thin pva paper glue, the other just filled with water. I used them for envelopes and stamps and the like that aren’t self-adhesive. Saves licking or looking for pritt stick.

    -SaraR

  3. snapper says:

    my wife does the same thing with belach so she can just put a little amount of it on stains on clothes beforfe washing them.

  4. Sumachy says:

    I Clean them and then refill them with sun screen for my children to use at school.

  5. Koshi says:

    Anyone have ideas about what to do for stick deoderant, the dry powder kind? They can’t get a second life as a glue-roller-on I don’t think…

    • Anonymous says:

      There is a website called instructables.com and a member on there use a deodorant tube as housing for an LED flashight he made. I know you can’t go making a flashlight every time you have a deodarant tube, but it’s one thing.

  6. Tamara says:

    roll the stick all the way back down, then

    melt some old crayon bits with similar colors i.e. reds/pinks, blues, greens etc. in seperate pots or in old plastic containers in the microwave. pour the melted mixture into the clean deodorant tube and voila!

    fat crayons for little fingers.

    i might mention that i have a tiny old broken-handled pot that i got for free at a garage sale, so i’m not using a nice pot that i eat from… although cooled crayon will come off a pot…

  7. Jim says:

    Does anyone know if the deodorant/anti-persperant bottles (plastic) are recyclable at all? I throw mine away too…don’t want to trip up the recyclers but it seems such a waste.

  8. SoloSalsa says:

    I also want to recycle them. I use gel deodorant that comes in the same oval tube as solid sticks. I keep saving the empty ones, with hope that they can be recycled one day.

  9. Mark says:

    When I dropped and shattered my crystal deodorant stick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alum), I got an old deodorant bottle, put a few shards in and filled it with water. voila!
    Glass bottles are easier to refill as the plastic housing for the ball just lifts off. For plastic bottles, you have to prose the ball out with a spoon.

  10. Pram says:

    I do the same as Mark with the alum :)


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  1. How can I reuse or recycle unwanted deodorant and body lotions? » How can I recycle this? 04 04 08

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