Taking a packed lunch in a plastic food container is convenient and a good way to save money. Plastic food containers are handy for keeping leftovers in, too. Unfortunately, they tend to hold on to stains and odors, and who wants to eat a greek yogurt that tastes like a chicken curry? Stains can make the containers, and the food in them, look less appetizing and the odors can ruin the taste of the food.
Plasticware can be expensive if you keep having to rebuy it. You should aim to keep it looking clean and smelling fresh for as long as possible. Here are a few tips to help you keep your containers clean.
Getting Odors Out of Your Containers
Proactively cleaning your containers will help you to avoid the situation where they end up building up an unpleasant smell. You should clean your food containers as soon as you can after eating the food that was in them, and use the right cleaning products to make sure that the odors go away properly:
Start With:
– Standard dishwashing liquid
– Distilled white vinegar
– Hot water
– A soft microfiber cloth
Clean the plasticware as you normally would, rinsing it in hot soapy water and mopping it with a microfiber cloth. Next, fill the container with distilled vinegar, and then leave it for five to ten minutes. Empty the vinegar from the container, and rinse the container again in hot soapy water.
Depending on how bad the odors were, you may need to do this more than once to get rid of the smell.
How to Remove Tomato Stains
Tomato stains are some of the most annoying ones to get rid of. In fact, if you have microwaved your plasticware then the stains will be baked in, and you won’t be able to get rid of them. For this reason, in the future it would be a good idea to put tomato-containing dishes in glassware, instead of plastic containers.
If you haven’t microwaved the container then you may be able to get rid of the stains using a home made solution with baking soda or lemon juice.
Using Lemon to Clean Your Containers
Cleaning a container with lemon is easy. Just empty all of the food out of the container and rinse it clean, then dry it. Take a lemon and cut it in half. Rub the fleshy part of the lemon over the stained area of the container, then squeeze the juice out over the stain. Work the juice into the stain with the rest of the lemon.
Leave the container out in the sun for an hour to let the lemon juice dry out.
Wash the container in the usual manner.
Cleaning Plasticware With Baking Soda
Baking soda is a popular cleaning tool that can be used for almost anything, including plastic containers.
To clean a container with baking soda, just rinse the container clean, then mix a small amount of baking soda and water up in a bowl, to make a thick paste. Use your fingers to spread the paste on the stained areas of the plastic. Leave the container to sit for 15 minutes, and then rinse the paste off with water. You may have to repeat this process a few times to get rid of all of the stains. Once the container looks clean, wash it once more with warm soapy water and dry it thoroughly.
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