Good Idea Friday - Bleaching Pumpkins

Preserving Jack O' Lanterns : My Science Project

I wasn't planning on doing these pins quite yet, but after everyone on my Pinterest page started pinning autumn things I figured I'd jump in. I've seen this pin and others like it a dozen times or more this time of year; so, does bleach really help keep cut pumpkins lasting longer? 

Yes! I figured it would, but I had no idea just how well it worked until I found the source of the above image.  Over at My Science Project they run a pretty extensive test on some of the more common methods people use to preserve cut pumpkins. It's pretty interesting read, and wouldn't you know it, but bleach actually came out the winner (neck-in-neck with a commercial product, but bleach is cheaper and would be my go-to), with the cut pumpkin lasting a whole 2 weeks before molding.

So with autumn just around the corner, it would be a good idea to keep a bottle of bleach on hand when you carve those pumpkins. 

Home Made Glow Sticks

"Making a Glow Lantern - Materials needed: Matches, bleach, 3% hydrogen peroxide, and a jar. Cut about 20 matches at the top to get only the match heads. Throw them in the jar and mix in 3 cap-fulls of hydrogen peroxide. One more cap-full of bleach will do the trick. Put the top back on the jar and shake. This setup will stay lit of hours"

People. Please. Please. Don't start mixing chemicals together because you saw it work online. "But there's a youtube video!" you say. Yes, and with a simple trick of camera work I too can make it seem like this would work.

Unlike other hoax videos involving harmless items like Mountain Dew, this is potentially dangerous.  First off you need about 20 matches and you need to cut the heads off them then place in a jar. Mix in a dash of bleach and a pinch of peroxide and voila! you have a glow stick in a jar!

But it doesn't work that way. Technically so I've read, the bleach could act as a catalyst for the peroxide to oxidize the phosphorous that is in the match heads. But also from what I've read (because honestly, this isn't something I'm going to personally test) this would have been something that would have worked perhaps 100 years ago - the type of ingredients, mainly the phosphates, in matches today are NOT the same as what used to be and won't work with this experiment. A similar phosphate is used in more modern strike anywhere matches, but those are far more dangerous than regular matches.  Everything I've reading online of people having actually attempted this have said it's failed.

Strike anywhere matches come with a list of dangers themselves - mainly they can catch on a lot of different things and POOF! Fire! Not to mention that when you mix bleach with hydrogen peroxide you get apparently straight up oxygen - which sounds lovely but is actually not the best thing to be around. (not to mention the perfect food for fire.. which you've just introduced to about 20 strike anywhere matches) If the bleach doesn't mix right with the peroxide you also face dealing with chlorine gas, which is a nasty substance and not something you want to be around.

So all in all - chances are this isn't going to work. and if it does work, it's still dangerous. Don't believe everything you read online. And if you want to have some fun with glowing jars, you're better off just picking up some cheap glow sticks, crack them open, and dump them into the jar. (but as we all know from one of my experiment  it won't glow like a lantern) However your best bet is to just make sure your home is stocked with batteries for flashlights or lanterns in case of a power failure and save those matches for lighting candles or a fire in case of an emergency.