Melting Plastic Beads in the oven

[Craig Matheny]

Ok Maybe I am just to set in my ways but I believe an oven is for cooking food not melting plastics.... However I lost the beat and my wife and her sister started making sun catchers from "Plastic Pony Beads" Now I raised my concerns on the possible toxicity of the plastic as it melted being it stunk to high heaven. So anyone have any factual info on this topic I would like it. the response I got from my sister in law was "They do it on Pintrest it is safe".....

[Matt Krusen]

The simple answer is you'll be alright, but it certainly isn't "good" and I'd try to put the lid on that one if you can.

I'd need to know the exact type of plastic etc. to say what fumes are being created. There are guidelines nowadays that say what plastic can consist of but there still may be compounds that could be considered carcinogenic. Irritating to your mucosal surfaces at the least. I work in a biochemistry/immunology lab and we tend to avoid plastic and use glass/pyrex for anything involving heat.

[Craig Matheny]

I am trying to get a package of these being the company that sells them has no contact info on the site. Thanks I will post when I know more

[Dave Sheldrake]

Plastic covers a lot of evils, PTFE is plastic...great at 150 degrees get it up to 300 and see what happens.....

cheers

Dave

[Myk Rian]

"They do it on Pintrest it is safe".....

You can't put anything on the Internet that isn't true.
Case closed.

[Mike Lassiter]

You can get counter top convection ovens that are quite large inside that you could do that in and not use "the" oven for this. We got one for our shop to soften acrylic and bake sprayed paint on glass with that has worked great for what we have used it for. I don't recall the smell from heated acrylic lingering inside but it was only heated enough to soften it not actually melt it.