Reader Tracy Britton of Los Angeles shares a grime-stopper for storing ice chests and other containers.
After each picnic, party or trip, she rinses out the cooler, then leaves about an inch of water in the bottom with half a cup of bleach. When she’s ready to use it again — sometimes months later — she swishes the liquid around, pours it out and allows it to air-dry. “It is fresh-smelling and super-clean,” she writes. She also puts a tape label on top warning that it contains bleach. Her coolers have lasted for years with this simple trick.
I may be wrong, but storing a cooler with an inch of water and 1/2 cup of bleach seems like a horrible idea! On many levels. The danger of spilling the bleach, for humans or animals. The danger of bleach being spilled and ruining possessions…
Can the bleach cause toxic fumes with the plastic in the cooler? By itself? I can’t imagine that the bleach doesn’t make the plastic degrade over time, even just a little.
Several years ago, we had bleach eat through their plastic bottles. Granted we did have them in the rafters of our garage, where it got hot in the summer. As for the cooler “smelling fresh”, I can’t believe it didn’t have an overwhelming bleach smell.
Seems like a better idea would be to clean it (with bleach or antibiotic soap) and then store it with baking soda and when it is time to use it, rinse it out with bleach if necessary.
Did you check with any kind of expert? Scientist, a bleach manufacturer, a cooler manufacturer?
I just checked the label on my bottle of Clorox. In addition to all the other warnings, it says (in English and Spanish):
“It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling . DO NOT use this product full strength for cleaning. Always dilute strictly in accordance with label directions.”
1/2 cup in an inch of water (especially in a smaller cooler) looks like it exceeds directions for ANY use of bleach according to the label.
It’s good advice to store any cleaner in its original package.
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This idea is very dangerous. Bleach can be used to purify water and we use it in our RV clean water tanks in the spring to clean them out before using them.
However, the bleach, per email conversation with Chlorox, will quickly dissolve into the water. If it did not do this the water would not be safely drinkable. I had contacted them about premixing the bleach and water and was told that it must be done at the last minute or it is just water when it is used.
Since this person is leaving the mixture in their cooler, they are leaving just water in it. One should never leave water in the cooler for an extended period of time as the water will go bad and may cause growth of microbes in the cooler, resulting in the opposite effect of that expected.
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