I have a bomb in my kitchen

March 13, 2008 7:06 PM

I have a plastic container of "milk" that has an expiration date of 12/07 in my fridge.

I use milk only to cook, and my refrigerator is a small, crowded and scary space. This (almost full) container got lost, somehow. Anyhoo, tomorrow is trash day, and I'd like to get rid of this toxic waste with the least possible collateral damage.

At this point, the liquid is mostly clear with a thick white substance on the bottom. Can I put the almost-full container in with the other trash? Will the temperature difference cause an explosion? Should I--dare I--pour it out? Is leaving it there until it develops an advanced culture and concomitant space program of its own the answer? Or shall I add it to a plate of beans?

posted by thebrokedown to health & fitness (25 comments total)

1) pour out the water
2) throw out the sludge
3) take a deep cleansing breath......................
posted by stubby phillips at 7:09 PM on March 13, 2008

Please do NOT add it to a plate of beans! If you value the working function of your intestines, that is. I have experienced this and I have just thrown the whole thing out with no serious repercussions (that I know of). You can pour it out, but you had better cover up your nose because that is going to be some STINKY stuff.

You can always leave it there, too, and see if it grows legs and walks away on its own.
posted by cachondeo45 at 7:11 PM on March 13, 2008

i would double or triple bag it in some plastic bags, unopened, and put it in the trash. if anything, the cold weather will freeze it, which will protect your poor unsuspecting garbage man.
posted by thinkingwoman at 7:13 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Generally, when I find stuff at the back of the fridge that's liquid, it gets its own plastic shopping bag around it, and then I put it in the trash.

If you pour it out, the smell-taste will linger in your head all day. It will linger in the plumbing. It will develop life all on its own.

So seal it up good - heck, duct tape around the bag if you want - and toss it in the trash. And by 'toss' I mean 'place carefully.'

(And by 'place carefully' I am in no way suggesting you wander over to the obnoxious neighbor who is always stealing your recycling bin and put it in their trash.)
posted by cobaltnine at 7:16 PM on March 13, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Pour it out. The smell won't kill you. If it is too chunky to pour down the sink, pour it in the toilet.
posted by ssg at 7:17 PM on March 13, 2008

Why not just flush the rancid milk down the toilet and recycle or trash the jug? Is there a larger problem I'm missing here? I
posted by TryTheTilapia at 7:20 PM on March 13, 2008

Put it in recycling and don't open it.
posted by acoutu at 7:29 PM on March 13, 2008

When pouring it out, breathe through your mouth. A very good George Carlin routine comes to mind. :)
posted by Melismata at 7:35 PM on March 13, 2008

I remember when I was a kid my dad found and old pint of milk in their fridge and instead of throwing it out he left in in there for a year. After a year he opened it. Apparently (according to my dad as he was the only one that would go near it) it didn't smell and it looked like very white cheese. He spread it on toast and ate it. He was fine. YMMV.

Personally, I would just through it out.
posted by ob at 7:39 PM on March 13, 2008 [10 favorites has favorites]

Put it in recycling and don't open it.

Don't do this, for obvious reasons.
posted by ssg at 7:40 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

It's basically turned to quark. It's not going to smell that bad, but you might have a hard time flushing it out of the bottle. My guess is it's pretty solid. Open it outside. I doubt it will be that noxious. if you can't empty it, seal it up and throw it away.

Recycling is a great thing, and I sincerely believe a moral imperative (if Ratsi the Na..si agrees), but if you can't get the milk solids out of the jug, just toss it. It's only going to make the difficult job of the recyclers a little bit more unpleasant, particularly if you are in a warm climate.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:51 PM on March 13, 2008

P.S. You can't recycle a bottle full of crap. Recycling is not magic, and the people who work in the field have way too much to deal with without spoild milk, dog poop, etc.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 7:53 PM on March 13, 2008

addendum: I'm in Mississippi. We recycle almost as well as I clean out my fridge.
posted by thebrokedown at 7:58 PM on March 13, 2008

Can you freeze it, then cut/peel off enough plastic from the resulting icksicle to let the contents slide out? I freeze containers of lost and found stuff from my fridge, then put the actual organic into the compost pickup when collection day comes around. (I run a little hot water on the container to loosen the contents if it's stubborn.)

Please come back and tell us what you did. If you choose to pour it out without freezing it, I'd really like to know if this turned out to be truly vile, truly inoffensive, or capable of taking over the world.
posted by maudlin at 8:01 PM on March 13, 2008

Bag and freeze. Put out with trash as close as you can to trash pick up time.
posted by jessamyn at 8:13 PM on March 13, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

You have homemade low-fat sour cream, plus whey. The whey contains the really foul-smelling stuff; pour it down the drain, follow with a sensible flush of water, and finally pour a small amount of bleach (1 Tbs - 1/4 cup) into the last of the draining water, to kill the stuff trapped in the J.

Throw the congealed portion (actually a kind of cheese, albeit probably not a tasty kind) into the trash, and empty soonish of course. It's fairly inert, though biologically active.
posted by IAmBroom at 8:49 PM on March 13, 2008

Wow!

Are all these references to grossness and toxicity ironic?

Duct tape? What's some sour milk going to do, leech into the watertable and poison the world?
posted by subatomiczoo at 9:04 PM on March 13, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I throw out months old separated milk all the time. If you sniff it, sure it'll be foul, but the think stuff will likely liquefy under running water and go down fine. Make sure it's cold water and flush thoroughly.
posted by yeti at 9:21 PM on March 13, 2008

I'm oh so glad this was not a "is this still edible?" question.
posted by Ugh at 9:26 PM on March 13, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

It kindof is a 'can-i-eat-this?' question.. but not seriously.

Nthing the lots of water and the plumbing'll be fine.
posted by msamye at 9:34 PM on March 13, 2008

I'm not sure why it is obvious that you should not put the container out for recycling. Where I live, milk containers are banned from landfills. And all the guidelines say to wash out the containers to reduce pests and odors -- and that it's voluntary to do so. My strata looked into this before and could only find that it's "recommended". YMMV.
posted by acoutu at 9:44 PM on March 13, 2008

acoutu: To start, there is a chance that the bottle will leak somewhere between your curb and wherever your recycling is sorted. That could, obviously, make someone's job less pleasant. If the full bottle makes it to the sorting centre, then it will either have to be discarded by someone if your recycling is hand sorted (hopefully before it leaks in their workspace) or will be discarded by the sorting machine. There is no chance that someone is going to empty the crud from your recycling for you.

There is a big difference between a nearly full container of rotten milk and a container that might have a little bit of milk residue on the inside.
posted by ssg at 9:59 PM on March 13, 2008

You have homemade low-fat sour cream, plus whey.

I'm never eating sour cream again. Ewwwww!
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:08 AM on March 14, 2008

wow - do people really go to these lengths to deal with some spoiled milk?

dump it in the toilet and rinse the bottle out with hot water. recycle.

you won't die, i promise.
posted by wayward vagabond at 12:23 AM on March 14, 2008

WTF? Recycle? Freeze? Won't it expand and blow the F up?! :)

I come across something like this in my fridge... well, practically daily. I turn on the tap and pour it down the sink while holding my breath. Nothing lingers in the plumbing. That's what's known as a GM (GrandmaMyth) like "the only way to get rid of cold sores is to put urine on them". Don't put any faith in them or you'll end up with a stinky upper lip.
posted by dobbs at 3:45 PM on March 14, 2008