East Texas Kitchen Care: Cleaning sticky, smelly Tupperware

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - If you have any Tupperware that’s been around for awhile...and not just that brand, necessarily, but other nice (not disposable) brands, as well ... you may find that it gets a little discolored, sticky, or retains smells after a few years of use.

No need to throw it away, of course. Give it a good scrub to see if you can reclaim it, as I did some I bought recently at an estate sale.

I bought a jade green Tupperware colander with its original lid from the ‘70s which is exactly like the one my mom had. I absolutely love it, and it was only $3. The issue is that it came with some stickiness, some stains, and a bit of unidentified smell that I wanted to get rid of.

First, I tried Jeff’s trick of using baby wipes, which is how he cleans vintage toys. It worked ok, but it wasn’t quite enough to remove the accumulation of stickiness from the Tupperware.

Next, I soaked it in a sinkful of hot water and Dawn detergent overnight. The next morning, it felt noticeably better when I scrubbed and rinsed, but still there was some stickiness and a stain. So I broke out the baking soda.

I made a baking soda paste with a bit of water and added a couple of drops of Dawn to it. Then I took a green plastic scrub sponge, and used some good old elbow grease, as our grandparents called it, to vigorously scrub every square inch of the lid and the colander with that paste.

I didn’t rinse it off immediately. I left the lid and colander coated with the baking soda paste for awhile; maybe 15 minutes or so. I wanted to give the baking soda some time to absorb odors.

When I rinsed it after that, it was amazingly smooth, the stain was gone, and so was the smell. It worked really well! Every once in awhile I still run my fingers across the lid to feel how clean and smooth it is after this “magic” process.

I love that we don’t have to throw away our pieces that are still otherwise good; save your money and keep the containers out of the local dump, too. I hope this tip works just as well for you as it did for me. Let me know by heading to my Facebook page; click here to visit me there.

CLICK HERE to see last week’s East Texas Kitchen Care video about cleaning the bottom of your enameled Dutch oven.

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