Some years back I found some strange flakes in my plastic bag storage bag.

They looked like soap flakes & it wasn't until I upended the bag & examined the flakes that I realised they were flakes of a very old biodegradable plastic bag cos some fragments were large enough to contain writing! Moral of the story - don't store biodegradable bags for future re-use! Re-use them immediately.

Some plastics are safe - clear plastic document sleeves & oven bags (normally used for cooking chickens etc so juices remain in the meat & don't splatter around your oven). Oven bags are perfect for photos, paper & textiles because they're not plastic - they're mylar, a conservation material.

I use oven bags to cover stuff that can get dusty cos I don't have enough glass-fronted cabinet, including white teddy bears, a doll's house full of small stuff that's a huge job to dust, textiles I have on display in frames that don't have glass or perspex,

Preserving your photographs at home


sandra