Grungy Plastic Bowls? Help Has Arrived!

Do you ever get to the point where you look around your house and say "Damn, I really need to clean X, Y, or Z"?  Or, in my case, you look at the calendar and realize your parents will be here for a visit in a week and you say to yourself "Holy shit!  I really need to clean X, Y, AND Z!"  (Hi, Mom!)  Yeah, that's where I'm at this week.  Lots of little projects that need to be tackled; nothing overly concerning on a day-to-day basis, but stuff that's been bugging me for a while and needs to be taken care of.

Like the state of our plastic bowls.  Now, for the most part, we don't use Tupperware or anything like that.  If we do have leftovers, we store them in Pyrex.  The only plastic storage containers we have are for my flours and other baking supplies.  And, of course, we have the obligatory plastic kiddie bowls.  You know, the ones you give to kids when you don't relish the though of cleaning up broken ceramic every time the 3 year old wants some goldfish crackers.  The ones your 8 month old can throw across the room and not kill the cat in the process.  The ones you can just chuck onto the top rack of the dishwasher and not worry about.  Right?

Before

After!

I honestly don't know how these bowls got this filthy.  They only get used for oatmeal, cereal, bananas and other fruits, and dry stuff like chips or the aforementioned goldfish.  But damned if they weren't gross.  I blame the bananas.  If you don't rinse/wash off banana slime instantly, it gets nasty and becomes a pain in the ass to clean.

This is what three of the bowls looked like before my experiment.  Please note, these had just come out of the dishwasher on the pot-scrubber cycle.  So, yeah, they're pretty nasty, aren't they?  Especially the pink bowl on the right; I'm still trying to figure out what the hell happened there.

What you're going to need for this is fairly simple:

• Bleach  (STANDARD BLEACH DISCLAIMERS:  NEVER, EVER MIX BLEACH WITH AMMONIA!  DON'T DRINK THE BLEACH!  WASH YOUR HANDS WELL AFTER USING BLEACH!  DON'T LET YOUR KIDS PLAY WITH BLEACH! In short, don't be an idiot, okay?)
• Liquid dish soap
• Water
• Large bowl, large enough that you can submerge the dirty bowls in.  NOTE:  You can do this directly in the bowl you're wanting to clean, but these bowls are so small, I thought that submerging them in a larger bowl would be preferable.

Let's get those bowls clean, shall we?

1.  In your large bowl, put a squirt of liquid dish soap.

Does anyone else think Palmolive is a really pretty color?  No?  Just me?

2.  Dump in some bleach.  No, I didn't measure it.  Just dump some in.  Probably 1/4 to 1/2 cup.

 

3.  Add enough water to cover your grungy bowl.

Suds!

4.  Dunk your dirty bowl into the water and made sure it's completely covered.

Seriously, look at the gross.

5.  Microwave on HIGH until the water is hot and starting to bubble slightly.  I did 5 minutes.  (Common sense alert:  Never put metal in the microwave!)

6.  After nuking, let the water cool for a bit (please, don't burn yourself; I don't need the guilt) and then remove the bowl and rinse well.  Repeat with the rest of your bowls.  I just reused the same cleaning solution, but add a little more soap and bleach each time.

Definitely better, but still a bit dingy!

7.  If needed, give the bowl a good scrub and rinse well.

That's better!

Look!

Clean!

SO MUCH BETTER!

What are you waiting for?  Go clean some bowls!  Or cups.  Or whatever.