Throw Your Plastic Food Containers Away Immediately If You Notice This
If you've got a fridge and always have homemade meals to keep, or even leftover food packed from your favorite restaurant that needs to be stored away for future consumption, then you definitely know how important plastic containers can be. Even when your nice neighbor brings over some of that fresh pie they've baked, saving some of it is easy with a plastic container. Heck, plastic containers come in handy when you need to pack some lunch for work, per Food52, a picnic, or pretty much in any creative way you decide to use them to carry food, per Recipe Tips.
The simple point is, plastic food containers are firmly part of our kitchen lives, and thanks to their lightness and enduring longevity, they can seem to just keep going on and on with each wash and each reuse. Considering this, you have to ask yourself: Shall I keep using this plastic food container? So far it works just fine. Or is there a point where plastic containers outlive their use and should be thrown away, even if they seem to still do what they're supposed to do?
When your plastic food containers should be thrown away at once
Surely you must have heard the saying: All good things must come to an end. Well, it's quite true in the case of your plastic food containers. And how will you know that the usage time of a plastic food container has come to an end?
When the lid or body breaks or some part of it is destroyed by fire, it can't be of much healthy use anymore. More importantly, any plastic food container that has been around for more than 10 years, no matter how mint its condition, can no longer be considered safe and should immediately be thrown out. According to The Kitchn, continuous use of such plastics will see dangerous chemicals like phthalates corrode into the food stored in them. Scratches from spoons and forks and other utensils can also cause bacteria to hide and breed in them, per Kitchen Seer.
One of the annoying things about plastic containers is that they seem to hang on to certain stains and smells that even when you scrub hard and clean the container to the best of your ability. Even applying all the dishwashing solutions you know, those stains and smell may just never leave. As soon as you find that plastic has gotten to that stage, you should just let go of it. It is better to have plastic food containers that are stain-free and without a permanent smell, per Kitchen Seer.