Polyurethane foam
Crumbles from the inside as it oxidises. Nothing in a cleaning cupboard slows it and oxygen is the cause.
What not to do
Water is unsafe on Polyurethane foam
Unsafe
Do not do this. The risk is established, and it is described below.
Why we say this
Supported
Stated as a flat prohibition in the leaflet's do-not column, for plastics generally.
Sources
Conserve O Gram 8/4: Care and Identification of Objects Made from Plastic
National Park Service, US Department of the Interior · Government or regulator
Relied on for: That solvents and water must not be used to clean plastic, and that if in-depth cleaning is needed a conservator should be consulted. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The sections headed Plastics Identification, Causes of Deterioration and Signs of Deterioration, plus the ventilation guidance. Supports the claim as stated. Gives the household-plastics record a deterioration mechanism and explains the sticky-remote-control problem, which the catalogue previously had no account of at all. Also establishes that improper cleaning is itself a named cause.
Last reviewed by a person on .
In detail
Polyurethane foam is the padding inside upholstery, mattresses, helmet liners, headphone cushions and packaging. It degrades by oxidation, and the process is internal: the foam yellows, loses resilience, becomes friable and eventually breaks down into a dust that comes away on the hand. Conservation guidance singles it out along with polyvinyl chloride as benefiting from an oxygen-free environment, stored with an oxygen absorber to reduce the oxygen concentration in the container. That is a museum measure and no household will take it, but it identifies the mechanism precisely — the agent of destruction is the air. For cleaning the consequence is a limit rather than a method. Crumbling foam is not soiled and cannot be cleaned; a cushion or liner shedding orange dust has reached the end of its life, and the correct response is replacement of the foam rather than treatment of the cover.
Why
- Polyurethane foam is explained by Damage versus soiling
- Polyurethane foam is explained by Oxidation and bleaching
The agent of destruction is the air. Nothing in a cleaning cupboard slows it.
Sources for this page
Sources
Conserve O Gram 8/4: Care and Identification of Objects Made from Plastic
National Park Service, US Department of the Interior · Government or regulator
Relied on for: That objects made from polyvinyl chloride and polyurethane foam benefit from an oxygen free environment and should be stored with an oxygen absorber to reduce the oxygen concentration in the container. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The sections headed Plastics Identification, Causes of Deterioration and Signs of Deterioration, plus the ventilation guidance. Supports the claim as stated. Gives the household-plastics record a deterioration mechanism and explains the sticky-remote-control problem, which the catalogue previously had no account of at all. Also establishes that improper cleaning is itself a named cause.
Conserve O Gram 8/4: Care and Identification of Objects Made from Plastic
National Park Service, US Department of the Interior · Government or regulator
Relied on for: That plastics are subject to ageing and degradation, that the first visible signs are weeping, tackiness, discoloration, distortion, warping, crazing and embrittlement, that once present deterioration is rapid and irreversible, and that solvents and water must not be used to clean plastic. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The sections headed Plastics Identification, Causes of Deterioration and Signs of Deterioration, plus the ventilation guidance. Supports the claim as stated. Gives the household-plastics record a deterioration mechanism and explains the sticky-remote-control problem, which the catalogue previously had no account of at all. Also establishes that improper cleaning is itself a named cause.
Last reviewed by a person on .