Sustaining the unsustainabile: Mitigation and monitoring for modern materials

Abstract

Recent practice of sustainable preservation has addressed energy savings through environmental control. Sustainability practices can also be applied to protecting and preserving the lifespan of collection items that are essentially unsustainable, such as plastic. A basic understanding of the chemical and mechanical interactions of these man-made materials can allow conservators to create balance between sustainability and stewardship by using a multi-stage approach to managing risk and resources. For collecting institutions, economic models that also consider sustainable preservation mean that combining core values of “reuse, recycle, and reduce” with management solutions will naturally integrate sustainable objectives into day-to-day preservation practice and scientific research. The degradation of plastic objects in cultural heritage collections presents many difficulties for taking a sustainable yet scientific approach because the materials themselves degrade in ways that are so specific to the material in question; reducing deterioration requires the amalgamation of knowledge and techniques that are less commonly applied to standard collections management procedures. Current plastics preservation research focuses on analysis and mechanisms of degradation, and scientific investigations have just begun to assess these risks in terms of sustainability. Plastic objects can be difficult to preserve for a variety of reasons. Plasticizers leach, polymer chains break, colors change, and structures crystallize and break, often as a function of exposure to environmental conditions. It is hoped that this article will facilitate discussions about sustainability as one of the key considerations in the preservation of plastics and encourage this approach for museum collections as a whole.