210 Chapter 8
that the long-term effectiveness of today’s treatments may be accurately known.
A wider range of adhesives, fillers and cleaning agents needs to be evaluated
specifically for application to use with plastics. Without the knowledge of the
interaction between such products and historical plastics, progress in devel-
oping active conservation treatments will be severely limited.
References and Further Reading
J.A. Brydson,Plastics Materials, 6th edn, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford,
1999.
D.W. Grattan (ed), Saving the Twentieth Century: The Conservation of Modern
Materials, Canadian Conservation Institute, Ottawa, 1993.
D.W. Grattan and M. Gilberg, Ageless®oxygen absorber: chemical and phys-
ical properties. Stud. Conserv., 1994, 37 , 267–274.
European Union Commission, ‘Green Paper on Environmental issues of
PVC (COM(2000)469FINAL)’, 2000, http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/
environment/pvc/index.htm.
U. Hummelen and D. Sillé (eds), Modern Art: Who Cares? The Foundation
for the Conservation of Modern Art and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural
Heritage, Amsterdam, 1999.
Figure 5Rubber gas mask being enclosed with oxygen absorber (indicated by arrow). Bag
is flushed with nitrogen just prior to closure by heat sealing