How To Clean Melted Plastic Out Of An Oven

Leaving melted plastic in oven fixtures is more common than one would think. Busy schedules and fatigue while cooking in the kitchen can make it easy to forget that plastic shouldn't go in the oven. The next time you find any plastic in your oven, don't panic. The smell of the plastic is a lot worse than the actual cleanup process for melted plastic in oven fixtures.

If you've ever left any melted plastic in oven fixtures, then you know it looks like a gooey explosion. When people accidentally melt plastic materials in their oven, or when there's melted plastic on stove appliances, they have a double freak out. Not only does it look like a mess that no one can ever clean up, but the smell is severely overpowering. Once you get over the shock, it's time to get to work.

When cleaning melted plastic, according to Fantastic Services you can either go two routes: the cold method or the warm method. For the cold method, you're going to use cold temperatures to harden the plastic. The cold temperatures make the plastic brittle and easy to peel up. Using a knife or scraping tool, you're going to break off the plastic from the oven.

If you prefer to use the warm method, all you have to do is use the heat from your oven to melt the plastic fully. Then you're going to use a wooden spoon and scrape off the plastic when it has softened. With the hot method, you have to be careful not to burn your hand or other extremities.

Depending on what type of oven you have, it will dictate the kind of method you want to use. If you have an electric or gas oven, you're going to want to use the cold method. When using the cold method in a gas or electric oven, place an ice bag on top of the plastic and let it sit there until the ice melts. When the plastic gets hard, you should then be able to remove as much of the plastic as possible.

The cold method will allow you to remove a huge chunk of the plastic. After you remove all of the plastic, clean the inside of the oven with dish detergent. To ensure that there is no leftover plastic before you use the oven again, run it on high heat.

Read more: How to Use an Electric Oven

If you have a self-cleaning oven, it's a bit trickier to use the cold method. If you use the cold method, it could damage the coating of your oven. The best option is to run your self-cleaning oven. Before you run the oven, you're going to want to open all of your windows and turn on the hood fan, because the plastic is going to smell.

Next, turn your oven on the lowest setting and wait until the plastic softens. That is exactly when you can use the wooden spoon to scrape the plastic off. Try not to use any other scraping tools besides a wooden spoon because anything else could damage the oven. When you're finished removing the plastic, run the self-cleaning cycle to burn any residual plastic.

Read more: Why Do the Burners Work but the Oven Does Not Work on My Gas Stove?