How do you dispose of old rubbing alcohol?

Answer 1

EDIT: I found a government source (City of Toronto) that says NOT to pour rubbing alcohol down the drain. Sorry. Instead, call your local pharmacy on how to dispose of it.

I'd put a link, but this site won't let me. So if you want to find the source, look it up on the internet. (Was a bit tricky to find. Sorry.).

To dispose of old rubbing alcohol, choose a sink where there is plenty of ventilation. Start the water in the sink before dumping the contents of the rubbing alcohol. Slowly dump the rubbing alcohol down the sink and run more water down after the rubbing alcohol has been completely drained.

Answer 2

Acetone readily evaporates at room temperature. If you would like to dispose of some, simple place it outside and let it evaporate. Be careful to place some sort of cage around it so that animals do not drink it.

Answer 3

Many websites don't do too good of a job in answering this question, probably because they use terms that they don't define themselves.

Purifying alcohol is actually very simple, and can be done without having to buy anything...

When you buy Rubbing Alcohol from the store, it is commonly 70-95% pure. This alcohol contains anywhere from 5-30% water, and is an Azeotrope (a mixture of two liquids that cannot be separated through distillation).

Many liquids have different boiling temperatures, so if you have a mixture of two liquids, you could boil away only one liquid, leaving the other liquid pure, this is Distillation.

Rubbing alcohol cannot dissolve salt, but water can. You want to find out how many grams of your alcohol is actually water. (If you have 1000ml of 70% Rubbing Alcohol, then 300ml is water.) For every 1ml of water, you want to add .38 grams of salt to your Alcohol. Once you have put the salt in, let the liquid sit for a bit. After a while, you will notice that the liquid has separated into two layers (Kind of like what water and oil do.) One layer is the alcohol, and the other is salt water. Now comes the hard part, extracting the alcohol without getting any salt water! Salt water can freeze fairly easily, but alcohol has a very low freezing temperature. Put the liquid in the freezer (Be sure not to use any container that could crack!) Wait until one of the layers of liquid has completely frozen, that is your salt water. One layer will still be a liquid, pour that liquid into another container, that is your 99% pure Rubbing Alcohol!

Answer 4

You can dispose of old rubbing alcohol by letting it evaporate in a well-ventilated area or mix it with an absorbent material like kitty litter before throwing it in the trash. Avoid pouring it down the drain as it can be harmful to the environment.