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Kitchen knives are essential so that you can cut the appropriate shapes and sizes of your ingredients. However, like everything else, they have shelf lives. This means that when they are no longer usable, you need to dispose of them.
Knowing how to dispose of kitchen knives safely is something we should all know about. The sad truth is that so many people throw them in the bin, but that’s the wrong thing to do.
So, how do you deal with those old knives to ensure that nobody is hurt at any point? Well, there are several important things that you may wish to do when discarding those kitchen knives. After all, safety is very important at all times.
The Importance of Doing Things Correctly
To dispose of old kitchen knives safely, you need to think beyond just throwing that knife away. The blade on some old knives will still be extremely sharp, so being guilty of not thinking things through could lead to problems.
Giving to the Police
Now, before we go into how to get rid of them, we need to mention one option that people do think about, and that’s connected to the police, and whether or not they could offer a solution to knife disposal.
The police say that they will accept an old knife being handed to them, but they will stress that you can get rid of your knife using other means aside from handing it to the police. However, they can provide you with some useful advice on what to do with them, such as telling you to wrap them up and place them in a safe place.
Dispose of Old Knives via the Local Charity Shop
One option available to you is to take your old knives to a charity shop and perhaps throw in the professional knife sharpener. This is best if your kitchen knives are being replaced due to just wanting new ones instead of the old set being worn and past their best.
A charity shop will assess if they can sell those chefs’ knives or if they then need to dispose of them, but at least it opens up the possibility of people making some money from them for a good cause.
Can You Put Them in a Bin?
First of all, let’s address whether or not you can throw an old kitchen knife in your bin. Well, there’s nothing illegal about doing that, but you need to consider the knife blade and the possibility of it poking through and injuring someone.
Do you want to be responsible for people perhaps being injured as a result of this? Well, there’s no reason why that should happen if you deal with things responsibly instead of discarding it like it’s some old piece of rubbish.
In saying that, you can do several things to make it significantly safer for you to dispose of those old knives.
Turning Them Into Blunt Knives
Perhaps the best thing you can do when dealing with old kitchen knives is to go ahead and blunt the blade. That at least means it’s not going to cause any harm to people.
So, what you want to do is to take your old knife and a hammer. Use the hammer on both sides of the edge of the blade to take that sharp edge off. This is a safe way of making sure that you are then disposing of kitchen knives that are blunt. It certainly reduces the risk associated with people being cut or hurt should they come across your old kitchen knives.
Wrapping Your Old Kitchen Knife
It’s also important that you go ahead and wrap up that knife to make sure that the knife edge is not exposed. You can use an old cloth or even bubble wrap. However, do wrap things up several times for some extra safety.
But here’s the best way to wrap up those old kitchen knives.
Get a cardboard box, and cut off a couple of pieces that can be folded around the knife blade. Use some tape to tape the cardboard down onto the knives, and then put the bubble wrap around them. That is just going to make it so much easier to dispose of those old kitchen knives without anyone being hurt.
Disposing Of in a Knife Amnesty Bin
Here’s an interesting option; if you know of a knife amnesty bin nearby, then you can drop your old knife in there and forget all about it.
You can contact your local police station to ask if they know of a bin such as this, but do explain you are trying to get rid of your old kitchen knife. They will have more information on what you should do next.
These bins are easy to use, and it provides you with a quick way to dispose of your old knives.
Your Local Recycling Centre
Local recycling centres are another option when it comes to the disposal of your old knives. Your local tip will possibly even have a bin where you can throw those knives into it, and then the matter is all done and dusted.
If the knife is made of steel, and most of them are, they can also be classed as scrap metal. You should then be able to dispose of them in the appropriate bin for scrap at your recycling centre, and again it means you no longer have to worry about what to do with that knife.
Remember that you need to know the metal that forms the blade of your knife before recycling them. If you are in any doubt, then dispose of your knives using other means such as the ideas we have already mentioned above.
Should You Sell Them for Money?
But is it possible to place an advert in the newspaper or online to sell those old kitchen knives instead of trying to work out how else to dispose of them? Well, you can do it, but it’s not advisable.
You must remember that there are laws as to who you can sell knives to, and you must make sure that they are of legal age. If you put your knives for sale online, and some random person buys them, you have no way of knowing who you are selling to.
This can then lead to problems if those knives are used for purposes other than food. Your old kitchen knives could come back to haunt you, and that’s a situation you don’t want to be in.
Can You Donate Them Elsewhere?
The final option to consider is whether you can dispose of old kitchen knives by donating them elsewhere. By this, we mean homeless shelters, soup kitchens, or even colleges where they are teaching people how to cook.
Also, if your kitchen knives are of good quality, perhaps an apprentice chef may be interested in what your kitchen knives offer. This does depend on the make of the knife as well as the quality of the blade. That means that this can be tough to carry out as a form of disposal, but if they are good knives, it’s better to do this than throw them in your wheelie bin.
Keeping It Responsible and Safe
By keeping safety in mind, that is how you will be able to safely dispose of old knives in general, not just kitchen knives. It would help if you thought about how you deal with them and who will be picking them up.
Admittedly, you have probably never thought that much about how to deal with those old knives, so perhaps now you realise that there’s a bit more to it than you initially thought. Never throw knives out without a care in the world. Instead, use one of the options mentioned above as they certainly offer a far safer solution.
Paul is the type of person who never met a problem he couldn’t fix. He can always be found tinkering with something in his house, even if it isn’t broken! His tips and tricks are often shared on our site. He’s the one you call when something breaks because he has been known to improvise fixes for everything from leaky faucets to malfunctioning dryers.
