Preppers share creative ways to repurpose used pill bottles for emergency kits: 'You don't have to be a prepper to take advantage'

Few groups of people are as skilled at repurposing items for future use as preppers are. And true to form, when one person posted in the subreddit r/preppers asking for suggestions on reusing OTC pill bottles, the community chimed in with plenty of ideas.

"You guys doing anything interesting with used over the counter pill bottles like Tylenol or Advil after the pills are gone?" they wrote. "Not the brown prescription bottles. Seeing if any neat useful things are being done with them."

Commenters shared a variety of answers, which ranged from sewing kits to fire kits.

"I keep a large pill bottle (with a good seal) stuffed full of dryer lint and a bic lighter inside my camping bag," one person wrote. "Dryer lint is the world's best fire starter. Also, it is free."

Another person shared, "I reuse them to keep small amounts of other OTC meds in my emergency bags. I have young kids so I don't want them getting into any meds."

And one person suggested, "Fishing hooks and some line coiled up fit perfectly. Keep a few of them in my back country gear just in case."

You don't have to be a prepper to take advantage of the handy second lives of things like pill bottles. For example, one commenter pointed out that they preferred using the orange prescription bottles since they can see what's inside them, and many people outside the prepper community seem to agree. 

From organizing tool benches to carrying a single serving of salad dressing to transporting powdered laundry detergent to the laundromat, there are so many ways to find a second — and third — life for those otherwise difficult-to-recycle bottles. And when you're done with them, organizations like Matthew 25: Ministries accept them as donations to redistribute in countries where they're not readily available.

The best part about repurposing is that it's not limited to a single use case or type of item. Rather, once you begin looking at your belongings with a creative, upcycling lens, you'll see that opportunities to keep items out of the landfills are all around — from your candle jars to your yard trimmings.