Comments on: What would happen if you ate one of those silica gel packets?

By: Dustin

Dustin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:23:00 +0000

My daughter opened a pack and poured it in the toilet. The toilet is now stained with blue dots. Any suggestions on how to remove them?

By: Maria

Maria — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:15:00 +0000

What about pet’s? Would my puppy (12 wks) be okay to have swallowed like 20-30 little silica beads??

By: Myleti

Myleti — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:51:51 +0000

I was always curious what would happen. The first thing I thought of was Seinfeld as well!

Anyway, we have packets and packets of the stuff where I work and they’re usually strewn about everywhere. At least now I know I was, uh, horribly paranoid for nearly no reason. (:

Also, this is unrelated to silica, but a guy I know dropped his phone in a pool and stuck it in a jar of rice and left it in the sun and it dried it out. Just thought I’d share that as well.

By: R

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:43:19 +0000

My brother swears by silica packets for recovering info from crashed hard drives. Apparently heat expansion can make your hard drive stop working. Or something. He puts the hard drive in a ziplock with a handful of silica packets and puts it in the freezer to cool it down; the silica absorbs the condensation inside the bag to prevent (further) damage to the hard drive. Then he puts it back in the machine to burn CDs of the info he wants to keep. He says it often works once or twice per hard drive for 20-30 minutes at a time, enough to save a decent amount of data.

I haven’t tried this myself, so don’t take my word for it: do some more research on this before you try it yourself!

By: John C

John C — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:22:19 +0000

My daughter ripped open a pack and ate some of the beads. We immediately called poison control and he told us not to worry, that it was more of a choking hazard than anything else. the poison control guy told us that in his training, he had to eat some silica gel beads so he would know what they tasted like …

By: Mare

Mare — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:33:42 +0000

Yeah, my hubby dumped his pills into the damp sink, so I suggested he scoop em back into the bottle and added a silica gel pack. Okay, they were a little gritty, but what a $avings.

By: motorkitty

motorkitty — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:00:22 +0000

the stuff is really great at drying out your electronics when they get wet!! i dropped my camera in the river and i put it in a bag of the stuff and left it on the dash of the car. i also dropped my cell phone in the toilet and did the same thing. both items work perfectly!! they sell it by the carton at places like target and walmart. i always have some on hand since i seem to have water issues.

By: Witty Nickname

Witty Nickname — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:19:44 +0000

This makes me feel so much better, the other day I say my 11 month old baby playing with a packet of silica (not-)gel, and moving it towards his mouth. I nearly had a heart attack, I took it away and he cried.

I am still not going to let him play with it, but I doubt I will rush him straight to the ER like I thought I was going to have to if he ate it.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:09:10 +0000

Roger,

Haha! But I meant in “real” life…

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:57:32 +0000

Well, Kevin, if I’m up on my Simpsons trivia, I believe you go out on an antacid trip. ;-)