Your child’s lunchbox is perhaps the last place you’d expect to find mould. After all, you clean it every single day. But a mother in New Zealand found out the hard way that mould can in fact be hiding in your child’s lunchbox. She now wants to warn other parents of her horrifying discovery, and how to get mould out of the plastic container.
How to get mould out of plastic container: A horrified mum’s tale
Grace Bollen, a young mother-of-two, found mould hidden inside a “secret” compartment of her kids’ lunchboxes. She documented it by taking photographs and shared her horrifying ordeal on her Facebook page.
Along with the photographs she also posted a warning to parents to be more careful, especially if they owned “air-tight” containers.
She even wrote that she felt ashamed for her two children who had been eating from those containers for almost nine and 12 months respectively.
“So today, something in me prompted me to pry open the glue in the kids’ lunchboxes. I saw a little black spot in the corners while washing. This is what I found. I’m absolutely appalled. I feel awful that my children have been eating lunch out of these,” she began.
“The children’s lunchboxes have been hand washed each night & left open to dry. The blue lunch box has been used for around nine months. Yellow for about 12months,” she added.
Bollen concluded her post by adding a piece of advice for all the readers. “ADVICE: don’t buy any lunchboxes that you can’t clean ALL the parts. Feel free to share. Parents need to know!” she wrote.
The distraught mum even got in touch with the container manufacturers to find out more about their quality.
What the manufacturers told the distraught mum
Adding to her initial post, Bollen reported that she got in touch with the two manufacturers and that they promised to look into this matter.
“I have been in touch with both the companies. Stuck on you & Lunch box inc & they are working to rectify the problem with the manufacturers & make them watertight. Please check with your supplier if there are any issues with yours,” she wrote.
Bollen adds one last piece advice for parents. “Tip: you can hold up the lighter ones to the light & the mould shows through,” she said.
Given its shock value, the post went viral immediately and has been shared by over 1.5k Facebook users. Many outraged parents shared their horror stories and even had tips for others.
For instance, wrote, “I bought 3 of these @stuckonyou boxes for my kids they are rubbish. All of them broke within 6 months each time I contacted the company they said it was unusual…”
Another user shared her user story with a suggestion, “I check mine with a torch and after I clean them they go on my window sill in the sun I’ve had my yumboxes for over a year and they are still good.”
Although the condition of Bollen’s lunch boxes reveal how horribly they were covered in mould, there are ways in which you can prevent this from happening in the first place.
How to get mould out of the plastic container and prevent it from growing there in the first place:
Image source: iStock
- Sterilize kids’ lunchboxes once in two weeks. Let them dry thoroughly before you reuse.
- You can also mix together 3.5 litres of water with 1/2 cup of white vinegar. Soak your boxes in this mixture for an hour. Rinse, then dry and use.
- Mix two parts of water with one part of hydrogen peroxide and soak your dirty lunchboxes in the mixture. Wash well, and let them dry before use.
Make sure you maintain proper hygiene when it comes to your kids’ lunch boxes and water bottles, as exposure to mould can have severe effects on a child’s health.
Source: Independent
Feature & lead images courtesy: Screengrab/Facebook
Also read: Horrified dad find mould in his daughter’s sippy cup
