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This question came from Montana Girl in the form of a comment last week, during our lengthy discussion about dryer balls:
I bought dryer balls (the PVC kind) long before I realized that they were unsafe. What is an appropriate way to dispose of products like these when you don't want to keep using them, but can't throw them away either?
sell it on craigslist? it doesn't solve the problem totally, but it gets it out of your house...
view hipersons's profile
in portland, we have periodic (quarterly?) 'plastics roundups' and they take EVERYTHING plastic for recycling (doesn't matter if there's a triangle or not) - it's awesome. anyway, not sure if your city has a similar program, but it's worth checking.
view mjeresek's profile
I like mjeresek's suggestion of giving them to the plastic posse. I'm not sure if Missoula has anything like that, but I'll definitely check. And along the lines of listing them on Craigslist, I suppose another alternative would be to list them on FreeCycle so someone who didn't care about the PVC plastic could use them.
Unfortunately, my dryer balls are made by "Dryer Max," not Nellie's. However, while it'd certainly be nice to be able to return them to the company, wouldn't they just trash them? Since it appears to be rather difficult to recycle PVC, it would seem that you're just trading one landfill for another by doing that.
view Montana Girl's profile
In the bay area, our waste management organization has a "Recycle Wizard" on their webpage. It lists most materials/products you can think of (including hazardous things) and gives you options for recycling or disposal. I doubt that sort of thing exists everywhere, but a good bet would be to contact your garbage organization, if the original company/manufacturer won't take the product back for re-use.
view mo p's profile