S.O.S. (Surplus Old Stuff) with Amy Moyer: Kitchen Plasticware – WorthPoint

The kitchen, the heart of the home, is also the heart of S.O.S. (Surplus Old Stuff)—cabinets and drawers filled to the brim with not just pots, pans, and dishes but also the bane of many a kitchen dweller’s existence: plasticware. However, before you tackle that periodic reorganization of mismatched plastic containers and lids, read on to learn about which pieces of vintage S.O.S. (Surplus Old Stuff): Kitchen Plasticware are worth saving (or worth selling).

Tupperware: Burping Lids

The tip of the S.O.S. (Surplus Old Stuff): Kitchen Plasticware iceberg is occupied by none other than the classic brand Tupperware. In 1938, Tupperware founder Earl Tupper had the foresight to scale a food storage business out of the burgeoning plastic revolution, thanks to companies such as Dupont, that were making more polyethylene pellets than you could shake a stick at. Mr. Tupper combined the production of his new product with an innovative marketing plan whereby home-bound housewives hosted “parties” to sell these unbreakable goods. Today, those quaint old Tupperware parties are viewed through various lenses, as while these saleswomen became empowered with their own income, they did so while keeping women in the domestic sphere, trying to figure out how to best store their casserole leftovers under Tupperware’s “burping lids.”

What does this all mean for today’s owners of vintage Tupperware? Unfortunately, little vintage Tupperware has value other than the Hourglass Salt and Pepper Sets, which can fetch a few hundred dollars or more on the secondary market. Other than watching out for those sets in your cupboards, you can safely trash or donate most older pieces if they have outlived their usefulness.

Melamine: Atomic and Toxic?

Unlike soft Tupperware, any melamine items you find in your kitchen are super hard plastic, often in dishware instead of food storage. Melamine became a popular material for plates, bowls, and cups starting in the 1940s, with brands like Melmac Boontonware, and peaked in the 1960s. Although manufacturers still produce dishware in this material today, many consumers are cautious about consuming food off these surfaces.

Truth be told, the jury is still out on the safety of melamine plasticware. For this reason, much vintage melamine dishware remains hard to sell on the secondary market despite its often fabulous atomic and streamlined designs. However, you may have some luck selling vintage melamine plates if they are in excellent condition, as they are known for often being overly scratched by knife usage. Bowls can also sometimes be discolored by hot foods, so if you have old melamine bowls in great condition, you may also have luck hawking those.

Whatever you do, keep an eye out for solid-colored Hellerware. Originally designed by Massimo and Lella Vignelli, Hellerware became popular in the 1970s and is still being produced today. On the secondary market, the vintage items sell better than the newer ones. While much of the old melamine was solid colored, the material is still being used today for character and brand-themed dishware from companies as diverse as Disney and McDonald’s.

Plenty More Plasticware: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

How about the rest of the plasticware in your kitchen? I hate to be the bearer of bad plastic news, but it is pretty hard to sort through the good and bad plastics in your cupboards. Remember the BPA controversy several years ago? I was so disheartened to learn about the possible health effects of BPA exposure, especially after reorganizing my cereal storage cabinet into an Instagram-worthy display of lovely rectangular and square clear plastic storage containers to hold my family’s Cheerios and Froot Loops (now we keep the cereal in their original boxes).

Ultimately, as a household, you are safer having less plastic in your kitchen and more glassware instead. Personally, I have become a big fan of Mason and Ball jar storage—have you seen all the fabulous colors you can get these days? No, they generally aren’t big enough for cereal storage, but they are useful for almost everything else. And hey, if you find yourself with too many of these glass jars in the future, check my tips for paring those down in S.O.S. (Surplus Old Stuff): Kitchen Glassware!

If you need to parse through piles of plastic, read on for:

10 Steps for S.O.S. (Surplus Old Stuff): Kitchen Plasticware

1. Empty out all your plasticware in one spot, putting everything together on a big counter or old-fashioned card table.
2. Check for scratches, discoloration, and general wear. Dispose of these items. Not only do they not have any value, but they may also be dangerous, and you don’t want bits of microplastics leaching into your food.
3. You may not have any, but put all the old Tupperware brand items into one area. Check for collectible salt and pepper shaker sets which you may want to resell.
4. Gather all the melamine in another area and separate out the character or brand-themed wares. As for the solid-colored pieces, turn those over to check for the word “Heller” on the bottom.
5. Other than the Hellerware, you can fearlessly chuck any worn melamine items.
6. Look up the value of any themed melamine on WorthPoint. You may want to resell some of those Disney Hercules plates.
7. Match up your plasticware. Nest your containers and check to see that each food storage piece has a corresponding lid.
8. You undoubtedly have a stack of lids for nothing. Toss those.
9. Do you have an overflow of one size of plasticware? Pare these done to donate—certainly, you will never need ten different ways to pack your sandwich for work.
10. Donate or sell all the plastic you’ve winnowed out, and stack the rest back into your cabinets and cupboards. You likely now have more room to rethink your food storage and serving choices for the new year (think: Mason jars!)

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Amy Moyer is the proprietor of Antmuffin: Art, Antiques & Collectibles. She holds a B.A. in Visual Art from Brown University and lives in Boston.

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