Is it safe to bake in an oven with melted plastic residue left?
For space reasons, my apartment leaves some of our casserole dishes and baking trays in the oven. When my roommate went to preheat the oven one night, he failed to realize that some of them had plastic lids. As thus, it resulted in a mess of melted plastic in our oven and our whole apartment smelling awful for an hour or two.
We cleaned it up and got it off the oven racks, and managed to scrub most of it off of the bottom. Problem is that some of it dripped down into the vent. Even upon removing the cover, I believe there's some that we just won't be able to get...and who knows how much plastic is actually dripped down there.
No one's used the oven since, but I like to bake and the holidays are coming up. Is our oven still safe to use at all? I do think it smells a little plastic-y when heated up, but it's no longer smoking...I think.
Best Answer
My suggestion would be to let it run at its highest temperature setting for a while (if it has a pyrolysis/heat-cleaning setting, you can also use that). Best open some windows to let the fumes escape.
When it doesn't smell and smoke any more, I would personally consider it safe to use again, especially at lower temperatures than the one you used to make it usable again.
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Quick Answer about "Is it safe to bake in an oven with melted plastic residue left?"
Heating it up to maximum temperature and leaving it there until the smell/fumes are gone should remove all relevant volatiles, and after that, I would consider it safe to use again.Is it safe to use oven after melted plastic?
The short answer is probably not. While the jury is still out on this one, some organizations do point out the potential dangers of fumes from burning plastics. The USDA points out that any food permeated by any toxic fumes should be thrown out.Is melted plastic fumes toxic?
When plastic is burned, it releases dangerous chemicals such as hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, dioxins, furans and heavy metals, as well as particulates. These emissions are known to cause respiratory ailments and stress human immune systems, and they're potentially carcinogenic.How do you clean oven after melting plastic?
Once your oven's cooled down, put a bag of ice on the melted plastic to make it easier to scrape. If there's plastic on your oven rack, put it in the freezer to chill. After 30 minutes, use a razor blade or scraping tool to gently scrape the plastic off. Use protective gloves, since the plastic pieces can be sharp.What happens if you breathe in melted plastic fumes?
Health Concerns of Plastic Fumes In general inhalation of plastic fumes can lead to an increased risk of heart disease, respiratory side effects such as aggravated asthma, skin irritations, headaches, nervous system damage, and other organ damage such as the kidney, liver, and reproductive system.Cleaning Plastic From the Oven
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