Most plastic bottles used for beverages, like soda bottles and common water bottle brands, have plastic or paper labels that are affixed with a strong glue, such as water-based or hot melt adhesive. This durable, powerful adhesive effectively prevents the label from falling off, therefore, trying to remove it can be a bit of a headache. Luckily, there's an easy hack for removing the label from your plastic bottle that will only take a couple of minutes.

Someone might want to remove the label from a plastic bottle in order to reuse it for a different purpose or simply for aesthetic purposes. Most labels and adhesives on plastic bottles will disintegrate with extreme heat in the recycling process, therefore it's generally not required to remove them before recycling. However, some people might choose to remove the labels in order to ensure their plastic bottles are recycled and create less work for recycling center.

To easily and cleanly remove the label, fill the empty bottle with hot water then screw on the cap and allow it to sit for a couple of minutes. Hot water from the sink will suffice, but the water should be hot enough to melt the adhesive on the bottle (so take care when handling the hot bottle). After about two minutes, begin at one corner and slowly peel the label off. Once the label is off, there is often a sticky residue remaining from the glue. The good news is, this can also easily be removed.