Most of us don't think twice about the small orange bottles that pile up in the back of our medicine cabinets. But one TikTok creator is showing how those little containers can do a lot more than just hold old medications.
In a recent video, prepper Solly (@PoweredByShtf) shows how he repurposes empty prescription bottles for everyday storage instead of tossing them.
"It's a great idea for organizing," he said, before breaking down how he uses them.
@poweredbyshtf Prepper Repurposing Prescription Bottles #creatorsearchinsights #prepper #emergencymedicalkit #organization #fyp ♬ original sound - Solly
Solly explains that many of his old pill bottles now live in his car as part of a compact first-aid kit. He uses them to store bandages, butterfly stitches, alcohol prep pads, Tylenol and ibuprofen, and cough drops. Others have antacid tablets, toothpicks, and other small essentials that fit perfectly in the center console and are easy to grab when needed.
He also builds a mini emergency kit inside one bottle for his go-bag, filling it with Vaseline-coated cotton balls as a fire starter and loose change and folded bills for emergency cash.
If you already have a stash of empty bottles sitting at home, you're essentially sitting on free storage. Dedicated travel containers or small storage organizers typically cost anywhere from $5 to $20 apiece.
Multiply that across a car kit, a travel bag, a junk drawer, and an emergency stash, and you could easily spend $40 or more on containers designed to do exactly what these bottles already do: seal tight, block moisture, and keep small items contained.
There's also the waste fact. Globally, less than 14% of plastic waste is actually recycled, meaning most hard plastics end up in landfills or in nature instead of being turned into new products.
Reusing a prescription bottle, even a handful of times, stretches its lifespan, also delaying it from entering waste streams, and it reduces the demand for new single-use plastics, which are tied to dirty fuel extraction and pollution.
Commenters shared their own uses for repurposing old pill bottles, too.
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Save $1,000 this year 💸 "Pretty much how I reuse them as well and then also I use them for matches," one person wrote.
"I use mine for seeds," added another commenter.
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