Why You Should Never Use WD-40 On Your Plastic Drawers

WD-40 is a product that you're likely to find in most households. There are a lot of genius tips for using WD-40 at home — it's known for loosening rusted parts, unsticking mechanisms, and lubricating joints. But there's a handful of mistakes everyone makes when using WD-40 around the house, one of which is using it on the wrong items or materials. One of these materials is plastic, which WD-40 can damage due to the hydrocarbons in its composition.   

Using plastic drawers to store unsightly things that you don't want cluttering your space is a superb garage storage idea. However, these drawers can become quite stiff or start to squeak over time, making it tricky to pull them out properly without extra effort or noise. If this is happening to your set of plastic drawers, you may be tempted to use WD-40 to loosen them, but be warned — this isn't an effective solution, and it can ultimately ruin your storage drawers for good.

Using WD-40 on plastic components such as polycarbonate or acrylic drawer slides can be detrimental. It will inevitably soften the plastic, making it extremely fragile and likely to break. WD-40 is chemically designed with hydrocarbons that remove oil and grease from surfaces. Unfortunately, when certain hydrocarbons mix with plastic polymers, the chemical reaction causes the polymers to break down and become structurally week, resulting in the plastic eventually breaking.

Plastic polymers like polystyrene and polycarbonate are particularly vulnerable to getting severely damaged by WD-40. It can be hard to determine the chemical make up of your plastic drawers and the exact effect WD-40 will have on them. So, it's always better to be safe than sorry, and testing WD-40 out on the specific type of plastic first is recommended.

To avoid causing damage, try natural WD-40 alternatives to stop your drawers from becoming stiff or squeaking. For example, you can rub candle wax or a bar of soap along the plastic tracks. This will gently lubricate the plastic elements of your drawers without breaking them down over time.