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Archival Safety and Sheet Protectors
INFORMATION ON SHEET PROTECTORS AND ARCHIVAL SAFETY
Here you will find basic information about archival safety in connection with the use of binder accessory for storage of documents, Cd, diskettes, photos, business cards, laser and ink jet prints, etc.
WHAT NOT TO DO
Plastic enclosures manufactured from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are NOT recommended for archival photographic or document storage. This plastic, often referred to as "vinyl" is not as stable as some other plastics. It can contain volatile plasticizers and emit damaging hydrochloric acid as it deteriorates.
This deterioration is easy to detect as the page protector get yellow and starts to crack with time. Unfortunately before this happen the material in the sheet protector may have been attacked and the documents has been smeared or copied on to the sheet protector itself. In other words do not use vinyl or PVC sheet protectors for storage of any valuable belongings.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
To avoid the above manufactures turned to a different source of plastic. Polypropylene (PP). This material is widely considered archival safe as it is as close to PH neutral as technical possible with plastic and does not contain any plasticizers.
It should be noticed that Keepfiling only market archival safe polypropylene sheet protectors and binders. On rare occasions we may provide access to vinyl sheet protectors or vinyl binder if a customer request this specifically. We then make sure to highlight the fact it is not archival safe.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
In some countries PVC has been banned for use with kids toys it is believed to release a softener (plasticizers) which makes the pages soft but is suspected of being a possible source for cancer. However this is much disputed.
In addition Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) also has the disadvantage of releasing toxic chloride fumes when ignited. Polypropylene (PP) release Co2 and water vapor when ignited.
Here is one easy way to check if your pages are made in vinyl (PVC). Open up the page and smell the air in it. If there is a "thick odor" to it, it is for sure made in vinyl (PVC). Polypropylene is odor less, unfortunately so is some newer types of vinyl or there are only a very limited odor with them so this test is not 100% safe.
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