I'm hoping you guys can help me out. My son takes milk in his lunch in a plastic bottle and two weeks ago he came home without the bottle in his lunch box. The assistant director at his daycare found the bottle and returned it to me, but it had been sitting at room temperature, sealed with a little milk left in it for several days and it smelled really bad. I scrubbed it with a bottle brush, ran it through the dishwasher, sterilized it and it still smelled. After that I tried soaking it in baking soda, still smelled and I also tried some dilute vinegar and it still smells. Any suggestions for getting the smell out or should I just throw the bottle out and order him another one?
Try soaking it in bleach and then running it throught the dishwasher. I mean the colorox commericalk says you can clean baby toys in bleach & water so why not?
I was going to say lemon juice and see I am a little behind. the paste with baking soda also sounds feasible, after soaking in the lemon juice mixture I would place the two parts in the sink and rinse with just boiled water. It will definitely be very clean!
Good luck.
D.
I pour in lemon juice and baking soda; leaving it to soak for a good hour. Majority of the time it gets the smell out when my husband leaves our daughter's strawcup in the vehicle. However, if you have tried everything you may have to give in and buy the same cup. I've had to do it once due to a cup was just unrelenting with that sour smell.
Try some bleach... My husband uses it on his plastic coffee mugs all the time... I wasn't sure it was food-safe until he pointed out that the detergents you put in the dishwasher include bleach in them...
I would try the lemon juice and baking soda tricks others mentioned below. It's really hard to get sour milk smell off plastic, I think the proteins bond with the plastic or something like that. If you find a cure for this, NEVER put the bottle away with the cap on, that smell will quickly return and IMO this makes the milk you put in it turn faster (or at least the sour taste permeates through it). Good luck!
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I would probably throw it out and get another one... better safe than sorry...
Try baking soda paste made with the lemon juice and let it soak. To rinse, use white vinegar FULL STRENGTH. It will bubble and fizz, but it should do the trick! Once the fizzing stops, rinse with water to get the rest of the baking soda grit out. Dry in the sun.
What kind of plastic is it? If is a boilable kind (think baby bottle) you should be able to boil it with water and a couple of Tbs of bleach .
toss it!
or another thought -- is it the kind of sippy cup with the removeable rubber seal? Remove that. There could be stinky mold growing in there.
Lemon Juice full strenght , I let it soak over night. Does the trick everytime.
Bleach water-- look on the bleach bottle for directions for sanitizing dishes, but make sure it is an EPA registered bleach for sanitizing-- just using your laundry bleach isn't necessarily ok-- it may have perfumes, etc that aren't food safe.
