I see time and time again that people with medical waste feel guilty when they choose to go low-waste or zero-waste. I cannot stress this enough: STOP FEELING GUILTY! Medical waste should never be counted. There are reasons for medication bottles, IV bags, tubes, etc. being single-use and being plastic. There are specific, sanitary reasons for this. If you are feeling guilty, ask yourself why you are feeling this way, because you shouldn’t. Can you imagine if bandages or ostomy bags were multi-use? Or if the tubing for your IV came from another patient? With changes in medicine came changes in hygiene practices, and with the invention of plastic, patients (at least where I live) no longer need to wonder if their medical waste was originally hooked up to another patient.

If you let something like medical waste make you feel guilty, it will continue to gnaw at you. Don’t. Most, if not all, of us with chronic medical conditions would rather not have to go through what we do to make life manageable. I’m not going to let the fact that I constantly have medical waste get me down. Life is far too short to allow medical waste to take up that kind of energy. There are more important things to focus on.

Looking for something to do with medication (pill, not liquid) bottles that pile up? If you are unable to recycle them, there is a chance that they could be sanitized for other purposes. I have cleaned them out and used them to store safety pins, Q-tips, paper clips, push pins, and mini nail files. While I haven’t tried this, I have heard that people use them for crafts. Crafts by Amanda has this article on uses for empty pill bottles.

Peace & Love, always!