Plastics Engineering, Vol.64, No.6, 8-9, 2008
Plastics age gracefully - Durable consumer products require long-term resistance to light, air, and bugs
Archived at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan (USA), are hundreds of plastic toys, house-wares, and other consumer products from the twentieth century whose appearance is scarred by their battle with time, light, and the elements. Yellowing and fading, cracked and weathered, these items (many only a few decades old) are challenges for the conservators who try to protect them from oxygen and further degradation.