As long as you use it safely and appropriately, it will stand the test of time—and serve up plenty of good casseroles for years to come.
Broken or chipped Pyrex should be disposed of carefully in the waste bin.
There is one caveat to using your vintage Pyrex, though: Do not use any vintage dishes that are chipped or cracked—in the oven or otherwise. Heating, washing and generally using items with these sorts of flaws can cause the dishes to crack entirely or release more chips of glass.
At its core, Pyrex is glassware and cookware that can resist chemicals, electricity, and heat. It is also shock-resistant and can withstand thermal expansion. As a result, it's an appropriate material to make cookware. Pyrex is also well-suited for lab tools, such as beakers, flasks, and test tubes.
PYREX® WARRANTY
Corelle Brands LLC promises to replace any Pyrex glass product that breaks from oven heat, and any Pyrex non-glass accessory item with a manufacturing defect, within TWO YEARS from the date of purchase. The owner must follow the Safety and Usage Instructions provided with the product.
Pyrex eventually switched to tempered glass most likely because boron is toxic and expensive to dispose of. Although tempered glass can better withstand thermal shock than regular soda-lime glass can, it's not as resilient as borosilicate. This is what causes the shattering reaction people are talking about.
Corelle Brands, LLC promises to replace any Pyrex glass product that breaks from oven heat, and any Pyrex non-glass accessory item with a manufacturing defect, within TWO YEARS from the date of purchase. The owner must follow the Safety and Usage Instructions provided with the product.
If it's all caps “PYREX,” it's vintage, made of borosilicate. If it's lower case “pyrex,” it's new, and it's soda lime. (In Europe, Pyrex is still made of borosilicate. So these recommendations only apply to Pyrex in the United States.)
According to Pyrex's safety and usage instructions, “While the glass is designed for temperatures typically used in baking, it can break when exposed to the direct heat element while the oven is preheating.”
This change was justified by stating that soda–lime glass has higher mechanical strength than borosilicate—making it more resistant to physical damage when dropped, which is believed to be the most common cause of breakage in glass bakeware. The glass is also cheaper to produce and more environmentally friendly.
What Makes Pyrex Special. "Pyrex continues to hold its value because most of us associate it with memories of family and holiday gatherings and memories from their childhood," Wright says. "The vintage designs and patterns of Pyrex evoke a nostalgia, which adds to its value for collectors.
The next time you go to cook dinner in a Pyrex pan, take a look at the labeling. Cookware with lowercase logos are usually made of soda-lime glass and should not be heated up in the oven or microwave to minimize risk of them breaking.
Patterned Pyrex—such as the 1956 Pink Daisy or the 1983 Colonial Mist colorways—tend to be valuable as a collector's item. Other popular patterns include the 1957 Butterprint, which features an Amish couple and their crops, and has been valued at a few hundred dollars.
While browning or rusting on a once-shiny, stainless-steel pan can be removed with a bit of elbow grease—and a lot of help from a cleaning product like Bar Keeper's Friend—other issues like warping or scratched coating on a nonstick pan can be a sign that the performance of your pan is no longer top notch.
Unfortunately, if your Pyrex bakeware and containers are no longer usable, they'll need to be disposed of in your landfill bin. This applies to both the old-style borosilicate glass and the more modern tempered glass varieties.
According to the FTC, during the pandemic, Pyrex measuring cups sold on Amazon.com were advertised as made in the United States. In reality, some glass measuring cups were imported from China.
Everyone loves a good kitchen hack, and one of the most popular examples concerns glass cookware. Between Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok, there are hundreds of posts asserting that all-caps PYREX is the good stuff (aka, borosilicate glass), and all-lowercase pyrex is junk (aka, tempered soda-lime glass).
Because borosilicate is the most durable when it comes to withstanding temperature changes, it is generally considered the safest choice for glass bakeware.
The best way is to look at the bottom of the product. My vintage Pyrex, which is at least 40 years old, and definitely boro-silicate, reads “Not For Lab Or Stovetop Use - Corning N.Y. - U.S.A. - 516 - PYREX.” Newer products made of soda-lime glass do not read Corning N.Y., nor are they made by Corning.
It's tempered, meaning it's been heated and cooled in a manner that makes it more durable under future temperature fluctuations. It's less likely to break under an impact, and when it does, tempered glass breaks into diamond-like cubes instead of long, pointy shards, so it's a little safer to deal with.
More than 100 years later, the brand has evolved from glass bakeware into other glass products that include food storage, serveware, drinkware, mixing bowls, and more. Anchor Hocking glass bakeware is made with tempered soda-lime glass, giving it durability and heat resistance.
Pyrex Goes in the Garbage
Pyrex cannot be recycled because it melts at a higher temperature than other container glass. Wrap up Pyrex and throw it in the trash.
Almost 10,300 consumers are due refunds from the settlement. The settlement covers customers who bought Pyrex glass measuring cups imported from China between March 2021 and May 2022 and people should receive their payments directly. Any payment checks should be cashed within 90 days.
Historically, Corning owned the trademark to the PYREX and pyrex logos and they were used interchangeably on all Pyrex branded products. Corning later licensed the use of the names PYREX and pyrex to two different companies who now produce the glass cookware.