How to Dispose of Label Evaluation Samples

You can get rid of unwanted labels after evaluating them.

Adhesive labels are a convenient way to mark or identify items, whether you are addressing a package for shipment or labeling a product for inventory or sale. If you have obtained label evaluation samples that do not serve your purposes, you will want to dispose of them properly. You can recycle them if the manufacturer indicates they are recyclable. If personal or company identification information is printed on the labels and you are concerned that someone might use the discarded labels for fraud or identity theft, you probably will want to destroy them.

Things You'll Need

• Shredder
• Scissors

Instructions

1. Examine the back of the sample labels for recycling instructions to see whether you can recycle them or if you will need to destroy them.

2. Look for product information literature in the package sent by the manufacture if you don’t see a recycling symbol on the back of the label samples. If you can recycle them, place the labels in the recycling bin for papers as designated by your recycling firm.

3. Obtain a paper shredder that can accommodate materials with adhesive backing if you want to destroy the labels. An inexpensive or poor-quality shredder may not be able to handle shredding the label samples without getting gummed up. Otherwise, use scissors to repeatedly slice through the labels to make them unusable by someone else before discarding them in a recycling bin or trash can.

References

• University of Minnesota Duluth: Recycling Services
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Policy Recap