But not for reasons you think! Early plastics are beginning to degrade. It is so bad that venues have been having to remove plastic historical items from display because they are visibly deteriorating. Historians have many advanced chemical and biological techniques to preserve artifacts but they are for “traditional” artifacts which are made from natural materials – wool, wood, iron – not man-made materials.
Now conservators are having to quickly discover new techniques to keep plastic artifacts from deteriorating, techniques that work on materials which have never before had to be conserved. It is apparently a huge challenge!
