Getting rid of plastic smell on ABS hide and fake foliage

[Luvyna]

My BP is outgrowing his Exoterra fake rock hides so I decided to try getting him some ABS plastic hides. However, even after washing them several times with dish soap and water they still have a strong plastic smell! I don't feel comfortable putting them in the enclosure when I can smell them since I'm sure the odour would be overwhelming to my BP. I am having the same problem with some plastic fake foliage I bought for him. Anyone else ever had this problem and how did you deal with it? Should I give up on using the plastic hides and the foliage?

[Trinityblood]

Soak it in baking soda or vinegar? Or dawn soap? Plastic burned on the heat coil in the dishwasher once and made everything in it smell like a chemical dumpster fire. I soaked all the plastic items that absorbed the smell in dawn for two days and it got rid of most of the stench.

[Luvyna]

Soak it in baking soda or vinegar? Or dawn soap? Plastic burned on the heat coil in the dishwasher once and made everything in it smell like a chemical dumpster fire. I soaked all the plastic items that absorbed the smell in dawn for two days and it got rid of most of the stench.

Thank you for the advice! I am going to try soaking the hides in baking soda for 2 days. I did try to soak in baking soda earlier but I only did so for an hour or two so maybe that wasn't enough. Hoping this solves the problem! If it doesn't work I'll try soaking in dish soap or vinegar next.

[Luvyna]

Update, ended up deciding to give up on the ABS hides After soaking them in baking soda they had no smell so I put them into the enclosure. However, I found that the heat from the CHE seemed to make the smell come back. Guess I'll be sticking with the cave-style hides.

[Trinityblood]

Darn. Thanks for the update. All plastic loses the potency of its smell over time, so maybe keep them around for a while and try again later.