The problem of studying and preserving museum collections made of polymer materials. Part 2

Polymers have had a significant impact on industrial, household, and cultural aspects of everyday life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They represent advances in technology, as evidenced by the dramatic increase in the number and types of objects used by people from these materials. Polymers have long been included in the various museum collections, characterizing changes in our daily lives and society's attitude to new materials and technologies. These materials are increasingly being used to create works of art. While museums continue to acquire objects reflecting everyday life and historical, in some cases the proportion of plastics in collections will increase. The service life of polymers is short compared to traditional materials presented in museums, and they wear out during the first decades after purchase. The destruction and conservation of plastic objects in museums has been officially recognized as an area worthy of study only since the early nineties, however, despite its novelty, plastics conservation is a rapidly developing field. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in modern objects, exhibits, historical and cultural monuments made of polymer materials, both in terms of identification and determining their condition, conservation and restoration. The proposed article discusses the general issues of identification, conservation and restoration of polymer materials in the museum environment and the problems that arise in this case. The main properties of polymers are described, which determine how and why this class of materials has found its widespread use and what its fate is in the museum collections. This article presents the second part of the thematic review, including the storage, preventive conservation and restoration of polymers in museum space and thematic collections.