Sticky plastic
The commonest cleaning problem that is not dirt. The tackiness is the plastic's own additive arriving at the surface, which is why wiping it off works for a week.
In detail
An old remote control, torch grip, camera body or kitchen appliance handle that has become unpleasantly tacky is not dirty, and this is worth stating first because every attempt to clean it proceeds from the wrong premise. Federal conservation guidance on plastics describes plasticizers as low-melting solids or high-boiling organic liquids added to hard plastics to impart flexibility, which migrate to the surface over time and leave the material tacky and, as they depart, brittle. The tack is the additive arriving, not soil accumulating. Wiping removes what has surfaced and does nothing about what is still to come, which is exactly the experience owners report. Three findings travel with it. Degradation announces itself by smell first — acidic odours such as vinegar, or camphor. The visible signs are weeping, tackiness, discolouration, distortion, crazing or embrittlement, and once present the deterioration is rapid and irreversible. And improper cleaning is itself named as an accelerating cause. Where the surface is a soft-touch coating rather than the bulk polymer, removing the coating entirely is often the only durable outcome.
Why
- Sticky plastic is explained by Plasticizer migration
- Sticky plastic is explained by Damage versus soiling
Hacks and claims involving this
- Sticky plastic just needs cleaning Does not work
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 plasticizers migrate to the surface over time leaving the material tacky and brittle, that acidic or camphor odours indicate early degradation, that visible signs mean deterioration is rapid and irreversible, and that improper cleaning accelerates deterioration. (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 .