You forgot about plastic utensils in the oven and they melted? There is an easy and effective way to clean the rack

Everyone knows that you shouldn't put plastic in the oven, but sometimes it ends up there anyway. For example, in the form of dishes that were temporarily put in the oven and forgotten about, or perhaps one of your family members simply doesn't know that plastic melts at a certain temperature.

"Whatever the case," Tasting Table writes, "if the oven is on and there is plastic inside, you have a serious problem. When exposed to high temperatures, the material will melt quickly, stick to the rack, and be difficult to remove with conventional cleaning products."

Fortunately, there is a way to make this procedure much easier.

How to scrape melted plastic from the oven

Removing plastic stuck to the oven rack at room temperature is tedious and ineffective because the material remains flexible and sticky. At the same time, if you put the rack in the freezer, after a couple of hours the plastic will harden, become brittle, and be easy to scrape off.

You can remove the frozen plastic with a blade, a sharp knife, or a universal scraper sold at any hardware store.

This life hack works well if you have a freezer large enough to fit an oven rack, but what if you don't? Use the same method but cool the plastic in a different way.

Remove the rack and place a large ice pack on the contaminated area until the material hardens, which will take up to half an hour. If the entire rack is covered with plastic, you may need to repeat these steps several times. Usually, only a few spots need to be cleaned.

Once the plastic has hardened, you can scrape it off just as you would if you froze the entire shelving unit. And when you're done scraping, don't forget to wipe down the rack with regular oven cleaner.