It ’s a conundrum many of us have wrestled with . We all require to do our routine to facilitate the planet and fightfood waste – yet we know that the arcminute the leftoverspaghettitouches the interior of that plastic food container , it will be consigned to a life of orange - stained abandonment at the back of the closet until we can justify throwing it out and purchase a new one .
For me , majestic Brit that I am , it ’s commonly with leftover baked beans that I come a sharecropper . It has previously reached the power point where I have reserved specific containers for the purpose , and woe betide anyone who conk near my pristine box with any solid food that ’s had so much as a sniff of a tomato . A quick glance atRedditproves I ’m not alone .
But does it have to be this way ? Why do tomato - based foods stain plastic so , and is there a reliable room of get the stains out ? Well , here at IFLScience , we wish to try and answerThe Big Questions , and these were certainly questions that loomed large in my mind as I decided which container would be the next to be sacrificed to the baked bean plant gods .
It’s like it never happened.Image credit: ©IFLScience
Why does tomato stain plastic containers?
With several years of plastic container - owning adulthood under my belt , I was not unashamed to learn that the solution to this question could be found in some skilful old eminent - school chemistry .
Tomatoes bear a hopeful carmine pigment called lycopene . Among its many redeeming qualities – it ’s been linked to a number of health benefits , fromsharper eyesighttobetter boners – lycopene is aquaphobic . The charge card that are typically used to make food memory containers are also hydrophobic and poriferous , which is the staring combo to encourage lycopene to flummox to them and never let go .
Another reason why this is such a headache in the kitchen is that cooking love apple to make sauces , soup , and all the other endearing things you might want to salt away in a container really increase theirlycopene content .
As Dr Emma Davies write forBBC Science Focus , its hydrophobicity explains why removing the lycopene stains with soap and water is a non - starter – and the high temperatures inside dishwashers can really be making the trouble worse .
Incidentally , hydrophobicity also explains another annoyance associated with plastic containers : how hard they are to dry . Writing forCosmos , Ellen Phiddian explains that body of water on a plastic surface sit around in larger droplets , making evaporation slower .
How do you clean stained plastic?
We ’ve pinpointed lycopene as the pesky perpetrator , and we know that hot soapy water is improbable to stand up to the challenge , but are there any cleaning hacks that do bring ?
dear Housekeepingsuggests that if you tackle the stain immediately , applying some vegetable rock oil before lavation can facilitate lift the grime . If that does n’t cut it , they commend call off well with bicarbonate of soda paste before washing as normal .
With nearly all of the big offspring plaguing humankind , a five - minute search on TikTok will yield a surfeit of multitude claim to have The Answer ™ , and defile plastic containers are no elision . The good people over atThe Spruce Eatschecked out one TikTokker ’s hack involving average dish soap and paper towel , finding it to be surprisingly in force .
You merely rain buckets quick water and a little dish soap into your stained container before bring a ripped - up paper towel , stop up the hat , and shaking vigorously . Apparently , it should only take about a minute for the stain to disappear . Microbiologist Jason Tetro explain to The Spruce eat that it ’s the combination of agitation and crude oil absorption via the report towels that makes this hack effective .
A more honest-to-god - school pick for refractory stains , as recommended by theAmerican Cleaning Institute , is hit it up in a mild whitener solution .
All of these method voice like they ’re worth a endeavour , and they ’re certainly preferable to just giving up and throw out your container – our satellite really does n’t need any moreplastic pollution .
But reader , it ’s confession time . I ’m afraid we ca n’t directly corroborate whether or not any of these nag worked for us . After fulfilling its dome - storing duties , my sacrificial plastic container was washed in the cesspool with the rest of my mantrap and , well , you could see the result :
Not a filth to be seen . Is it because the container is colourize ? Have I accidentally bought grease - proof credit card containers ? Would it have withstood another tomato - based foodstuff so successfully ? Perhaps those are questions for another day .
All “ explainer ” article are confirm byfact checkersto be right at sentence of publication . text edition , images , and links may be redact , remove , or supply to at a belated date to keep info current .
