How to Get Rid of Oil Smell in Plastic

Isn't it amazing to see how much we use plastic in our daily lives? If you look around your home or office, you might be surprised to see just how much plastic is around you. In your home you can find it everywhere from the dinning room table pad protector, to the toys your children play with. In your office, well the list is simply too large to count. Plastic though has a nasty habit of absorbing smells from things that are around it. One of the more annoying and problematic smells to get out of plastic is that of oil. How to get rid of oil smells in plastic though can be a fairly easy task. Here's how.

• Curing. One of the simplest ways to remove an oil smell from plastic is to try a curing process. This process would allow the odor to work out of the material naturally over time. The way that you would do this is by spreading the plastic outside in an area that receives plenty of sunlight. Allow the plastic to stay out in the sunlight all day long, and bring it inside at night. Repeat this as necessary every day until the odor has been removed. Be careful of doing this during the fall and winter though, since you do not want to allow the material to be covered in snow.
• Air dry. Similar in nature to the curing process listed above, this would be done in either a garage or an attic. Spread the plastic material out, preferably off of the floor, and leave it out until the odor has left.
• Borax. Fill up your sink with some hot water, and mix into the water two tablespoons of borax. Clean the plastic material in the diluted borax, being sure that you are careful to clean the entire surface of the plastic. Once you have cleaned the surface, be sure that you rinse it off completely. After you have rinsed the surface, allow the plastic to dry completely and the smell should be gone.
• Replace. Unfortunately, if the smell is too strong, it may be necessary to simply replace the plastic item. This is definitely the easiest manner in which to get rid of the oil smell from plastic. However, this method is fairly final since you will no longer posses the item that you replaced. I would suggest using this only as a last resort.