Next time you leave a plastic container with a meatball sandwich and hard-boiled egg in your car for two days baking in the sun there’s no need to throw it out; the plastic container, that is. Please, PLEASE throw out the sandwich and the egg.

To take the smell out of plastic containers, wet some newspaper, scrunch it up, put it into the container, and seal it up. Put the container into the freezer for a couple of days. When you take the container out, throw away the newspaper and the smell will go with it. I’ve used this method when my I left a salad with onions and garlic in my car for a few days and it really does work. FYI: I washed it in the dishwasher with very hot water before employing the newspaper method, but when it still had an odd odor to it I tried the newspaper method and it worked beautifully.