The Green Challenge: Incorporating Sustainable Practices and Materials into Collections Care (Full...

S. U. N. Y. Fashion Institute of Technology

‘THE GREEN CHALLENGE’:

INCORPORATING SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES AND MATERIALS

INTO COLLECTIONS CARE

By

Christian Hernandez

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree

Master of Arts Fashion and Textile Studies: History, Theory, Museum Practice

Fashion Institute of Technology

2013

© 2013

Christian Hernandez

All Rights Reserved

This is to certify that the undersigned approve the Qualifying Paper submitted by

Christian Hernandez

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of Arts

__________________________

Qualifying Paper Advisor

__________________________

Qualifying Paper Committee

ABSTRACT

Collections care professionals are looking for ways to be more sustainable in their

work without sacrificing their standards of best-practices. This is important due to the

ethical connection of caring for a collection ‘in perpetuity’ in light of climate change and

the negative impacts humanity has had on the environment. This paper centers around

two facets of collections care, practices and materials, and explores each in separate but

related parts with the common thread of minimizing the consumption of energy, water,

chemicals and resources using information gathered from journal articles, blog posts and

interviews with professionals in heritage preservation and allied fields.

Various collections care practices are explored and suggestions are made as to

how they can be made more sustainable. These suggestions include those easily enacted

such as turning off unnecessary lights, to those that require more time, money or effort to

enact, such as modifying the temperature and relative humidity ranges in storage to reduce

energy consumption. Sustainable practices used by the manufacturers of collections care

materials are discussed and expanded in the second part, which explores how a material can

be both sustainable and museum-quality. Roadblocks preventing the widespread use of

sustainable materials are identified and challenged by analyzing the ideas behind a museum

quality material and a sustainable material. The Oddy Test, which is commonly used to

identify museum-quality materials, is conducted twice on a group of museum-quality

cellulose boards, plastic foams and plastic boards along with their sustainable

alternatives. EcopHant, Ethafoam® HRC and MRC and Corogreen™, all of which are

made from recycled materials, are tested twice and pass. The results of this research are

that collections care practices and materials can be sustainable without sacrificing quality.

iv

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................... vi-viii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................................... ix-x

TERMINOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 1-2

INTRODUCTION: WHY IS SUSTAINABILITY IMPORTANT WITHIN

COLLECTIONS CARE? ................................................................................... 3-7

PART I: THINKING AND ACTING SUSTAINABLY .................................................... 8

CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................... 9-12

CHAPTER 2: ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING: TEMPERATURE,

RELATIVE HUMIDITY AND HEATING/VENTILATION/

AIR-CONDITIONING (HVAC) SYSTEMS .................................... 13-19

CHAPTER 3: ELECTRICITY AND LIGHTING ......................................... 20-25

CHAPTER 4: EMERGENCY PLANNING, MITIGATION & RESPONSE . 26-29

CHAPTER 5: INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM) .................... 30-31

CHAPTER 6: STORAGE MATERIALS ...................................................... 32-40

CHAPTER 7: DOCUMENTATION ............................................................. 41-42

CHAPTER 8: EXHIBITION AND STORAGE FACILITY DESIGN OR

RENOVATION ................................................................................. 43-48

CHAPTER 9: ENCOURAGING SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN

COLLECTIONS CARE ..................................................................... 49-53

v

PART II: FINDING SUSTAINABLE MUSEUM-QUALITY MATERIALS ................ 54

CHAPTER 10: OBSTACLES PREVENTING SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS

FROM BEING USED ........................................................................ 55-70

CHAPTER 11: MATERIALS TESTING ........................................................ 71-91

CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 92-94

WORKS CITED ....................................................................................................... 95-101

APPENDICES

1. BLANK ODDY TEST DOCUMENT ..................................................... 102-105

2. SCANNED IMAGES OF MATERIALS TESTED ....................................... 106

3A. TEST 1 – COMPLETED PAGE 1 OF ODDY TEST DOCUMENT .......... 107

3B. TEST 1 – COMPLETED PAGE 4 OF ODDY TEST DOCUMENT ......... 108

4A. TEST 2 – COMPLETED PAGE 1 OF ODDY TEST DOCUMENT ......... 109

4B. TEST 2 – COMPLETED PAGE 4 OF ODDY TEST DOCUMENT ......... 110

5. DETAIL PHOTOGRAPHS OF ODDY TEST RESULTS ............................ 111

6. QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO INTERVIEWEES ................................. 112-113

vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research could not have come to fruition without the help of many people.

First I would like to thank advisor Sarah Scaturro, professor at the Fashion Institute of

Technology and Conservator in Charge, The Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of

Art, whose encouragement was endless and support unwavering. I would also like to

thank all my professors at the Fashion Institute of Technology, especially Denyse

Montegut, Lourdes Font and Valerie Soll.

This research could not have been accomplished without the advice, opinions, and

informative discussions of collections care professionals. I would like to thank Emily

Kaplan along with Susan Heald, Marian Kaminitz, Patricia Neitfeld and Dawn

Neuendorffer of the National Museum of the American Indian, Melanie Keable of the

British Museum, Ada Hopkins of the Bata Shoe Museum, Whitney Robertson of the

Society of Cincinnati, Matthew Manninen of the Worcester Art Museum, Tom Callas of

the Museum of Photographic Arts, Terri Hudgins of the Cape Fear Museum, Meghan

Grossman Hansen of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising,

Elizabeth Byrne of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Arni Brownstone and Molly

Minnick of the Royal Ontario Museum, Mary Oey of the Library of Congress, Sandra

Vanderwarf and Allison Galland of the Brooklyn Children's Museum, Anne Lane of the

Charlotte Museum of History, Derya Gölpinar of the Rubin Museum of Art, private

conservators Sue Maltby, Bari Falese, and Wendy Jessup along with peer Erica Travis for

helping transcribe some interviews.

For providing insight about the manufacturing and supply of museum-quality

materials I would like to thank Daniel Ryan from Carr McLean, Alan Yaffe from

vii

Peterboro Cardboards Ltd, and Robert Dorfman of Dorfman Figures, Inc. For providing

samples to test, I would like to thank Meghan Redmile at Coroplast, Alison Bitner at

Conservation By Design Limited, and Mark Thomas at Sealed Air along with my peers

Janet Lee and Julia Carlson for helping to test the materials.

I would like to especially thank Mary Betsy Haude, Denise Stockman and Sarah

Nunberg of the American Institute for Conservation’s Committee on Sustainable

Conservation Practices for allowing part of this research to be presented in the

committee’s first formal conference gathering at the 2012 American Institute for

Conservation’s annual meeting and encouraging sustainability within conservation. I

would also like to thank Rose Cull, "conservator, confidant, and guide through the road

less traveled” who has encouraged this research from the beginning and gave insightful

comments while reading the first draft. I would also like to thank proofreader and friend

Kathryn Stephens. And lastly I would like to thank Neenah Paper for providing me with

the paper which this thesis is written on, which a 100% pre-consumer recycled content

acid and lignin free thesis paper. It is made from the waste material created during the

manufacturing of other Neenah Papers.

viii

This research is dedicated to

Luis Humberto Hernandez

and

Cathy Soledad Hernandez (1949-2003)

ix

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AAM – American Alliance of Museums - formerly the American Association of Museums

A-D – Acid-Determinant (only used in reference to A-D Strips)

AIC – American Institute for Conservation

AMNH – American Museum of Natural History

ANSI – American National Standards Institute

ASTM – American Society for Testing and Materials

ATHM – American Textile History Museum

BCM – Brooklyn Children’s Museum

CAMEO – Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia Online

CFC – Chlorofluorocarbon

CSCP – Committee on Sustainable Conservation Practices

CXD – Conservation By Design

FSC – Forest Stewardship Council®

HCFC – Hydrochlorofluorocarbon

HRC – High Recycled Content (only used in reference to Ethafoam® HRC)

HVAC – Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

IARC – International Agency for Research on Cancer

ICOM – International Council of Museums

ICON – Institute of Conservation

IIC – International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works

IPI – Image Permanence Institute

IPM – Integrated Pest Management

x

ISO – International Organization for Standardization

LDPE – Low-Density Polyethylene

LED – Light-Emitting Diode

LEED – Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design

MCI –Museum Conservation Institute

MFIT – Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology

MOPA – Museum of Photographic Arts

MRC – Maximum Recycled Content (only used in reference to Ethafoam® MRC)

MFA, Boston – Museum of Fine Arts Boston

MSDS – Material Safety Data Sheet

NEH – National Endowment for the Humanities

NMAI –National Museum of the American Indian

NMNH – National Museum of Natural History

NTP – National Toxicology Program

OSHA – Occupational Health and Safety Administration

PE – Polyethylene

PVA – Polyvinyl Acetate

RC – Recycled Content (only used in reference to Ethafoam® RC)

RH – Relative Humidity

SFI – Sustainable Forestry Initiative®

TAPPI – Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry

TBL – Triple Bottom Line

V&A – Victoria and Albert Museum

VOC – Volatile Organic Compound

1

TERMINOLOGY

The terms sustainable or sustainability used in this research paper refer to

environmental sustainability, and the general sense of care and concern intended toward

the environment. This can be described as “whole system thinking [by] approaching

environmental issues in an integrated fashion.”1 Examples of sustainability include using

materials and energy more efficiently, as well as minimizing the negative impacts of

pollution, waste, and chemicals on the environment.

Within cultural heritage, sustainability more often refers to economic or financial

sustainability, such as whether or not museums can maintain their spending habits or

visitor numbers. This definition for the term is used throughout the field’s literature, such

as the pan-institutional Smithsonian Institution Digitization Strategic Plan for the years

2010 to 2015, which is problematic since the term is occasionally used in reference to

environmental sustainability, such as the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of

Natural History (NMNH)’s 2010 to 2015 entitled Knowledge for a Sustainable Future.

Environmental sustainability along with economic and social sustainability forms

the components of the sustainability model referred to as the three-legged stool or the

three pillars of sustainable development.2 This model, hotly defended and contested,

forms the framework for much of the discussions about sustainability in various fields.

For the purposes of this research, environmental sustainability will be the focus.

1 Sarah Brophy and Elizabeth Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green – Museums and the Green

Movement,” Museum News, September/October 2006, 85, no. 5: 44. 2 Neil Dawe and Kenneth Ryan, “The Faulty Three-Legged-Stool Model of Sustainable Development,”

Conservation Biology, 17, no. 5 (23): 1458-1460.

2

Another often-used term is green, where the general sense of care and concern for

the environment is also implied. According to the authors of The Green Museum: An

Environmental Primer the term “green” refers to products and behaviors that are

environmentally benign, while sustainable means practices that rely on renewable/reusable

materials and processes that are green or environmentally benign.”3 As is often the case

these two terms are used interchangeably since for most people they are synonyms. Unlike

the term sustainable, which appears to be more rooted in science, green is more often

used in a colloquial fashion by the broader public and by companies trying to market

their products or services as being environmentally conscious. Similarly other terms such

as environmentally-friendly, -conscious or -benign, along with their eco- counterparts are

used without clarification of intent. Since use of these terms is not regulated they are

often misused and exaggerated, a phenomena called “green washing.”

In using the word sustainable over green, it is the author’s intent to avoid the

more corrupted of the two, as well as to be aligned with the term favored by the

conservation community, as is evident by the American Institute for Conservation

(AIC)’s Committee on Sustainable Conservation Practices (CSCP). After discussing

terminology with various professionals, it has become apparent that there is no consensus

on what these various terms mean in the conservation field, let alone in allied fields.

3 Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 39.

3

INTRODUCTION

Why is sustainability important within collections care?

As environmental issues become more prominent in today’s world, the

connections between caring for the environment and caring for artifacts have become

much more apparent. These links were always present but in recent years the field of

heritage preservation has acknowledged them, resulting in changes in ethics and

practices. This may be due to what Jonathan Ashley-Smith, former head of conservation

at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), calls the “adolescence of the profession.”4

The field of heritage preservation is currently in flux and being molded by the variety of

professionals from within who, in some respects, are in a profession yet to be fully

defined, and the inclusion of sustainability is one such evolution.

Nicholas Poole, current president of the International Council of Museums

(ICOM) has stated that “changes in both the internal micro-climate and the external

macro-climate have impact on the sustainability of collections,” calling it “The Green

Challenge.”5 “If we telescope the issues from the micro-environments of exhibition and

storage facilities to the macro-environment of the planet as a whole, we can see how poor

environmental practices have put our shared cultural heritage at risk.” 6 Therein lies the

foundation of sustainability within heritage preservation; it is grounded in forethought and

4 Jonathan Ashley-Smith, “The Adolescence of the Profession” (lecture, Royal Academy of Arts, London,

England, September 2009), https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/learning/conservation-principles-dilemmas-

and-uncomfortable-truths,1104,AR.html (accessed May 28, 2012). 5 Nicholas Poole, "10 Challenges for the Next Generation of Collections Management Standards," slide 23

from slide presentation to the German Collections Management Standards conference, Dresden, Germany,

January 1, 2010 posted on January 30, 2010, http://www.slideshare.net/nickpoole/10-challenges-for-the-

next-generation-of-collections-management-standards?from=share_email_logout2 (accessed August 10,

2011). 6 Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 44.

4

ethics, and is not a passing fad or a marketing ploy. “There is little point in preserving

collections for posterity if survival of future generations is under threat or the cultural

heritage is at risk from environmental catastrophes.”7

This paper largely explores the relationship between sustainability and heritage

preservation in a technical fashion – minimizing waste, efficient energy use and the like –

but the ethical relationship between them is often unstated though hugely important, and

forms the framework for this research. Professional ethics in heritage preservation often

mention how a collection must exist in perpetuity, which is clearly linked to sustainability

since “the severity of floods and other natural disasters is widely seen as a product of

global climate change, in turn a result of poor environmental practice” and as

professionals we can “think of it as the ultimate in preservation conservation.”8 This facet

of collections care is difficult to see, since there is no tangible, immediate reward in

disaster prevention, but preparedness is an ethical responsibility – for collections and for

the environment. Fundamentally caring for the future environment ensures there are still

people in the future to visit and care for the collection.

Together with the ethical relationship previously mentioned is the influence of

working within a field aimed at cultivating knowledge – “the museum has special

responsibilities to address scientific issues of relevance to our society and the world, such

as the preservation of biological and cultural diversity and the impact of global

environmental change.”9 Anyone working in heritage preservation has the opportunity to

educate visitors about sustainability, what it truly means to care for collections in

7 Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 44.

8 Sarah Brophy and Elizabeth Wylie, The Green Museum: A Primer on Environmental Practice (Lanham:

AltaMira Press, 2008), 5. 9 National Museum of Natural History, Understanding Our World: Strategic Plan for the National Museum of

Natural History, 2004-2009 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, 2004), 13.

5

perpetuity and how museums and the public are both affect the future.10

“As places of

authority and keepers of culture, museums have unequaled power and responsibility to

model and to teach the methods of preserving ourselves, our planet and our cultural

resources.”11

Furthermore museums have the responsibility to represent their city, state or

region as institutions “standing at the intersection of research, education, teaching and

discovery.”12

When asked if sustainability was part of his institute’s mandate or mission,

Terri Hudgins, museum registrar for the Cape Fear Museum, stated “we are a county

agency, and sustainability is part of the county’s vision.”13

Considering how connected heritage preservation is to the environment, it is

surprising how infrequently museums mention it in their mandates or missions.14

Natural

history museums have led the way in acknowledging sustainability since their focus is on

the natural world and “species are disappearing as a result of accelerating environmental

changes.”15

In 1998 the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) “convened a

cross-departmental Sustainability Practices Committee to research opportunities to

increase awareness about sustainability practices at the Museum and to make

recommendations for and, where appropriate, implement changes that add or improve

10

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 38-45; National Museum of the American Indian, Strategic

Plan 2006-2008: Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC: Smithsonian

National Museum of the American Indian, 2008), 25; Sarah Brophy and Elizabeth Wylie, “Saving Collections

and the Planet: For Creating a Green, Sustainable Future, Museum Collections Are Part of the Solution - and Part

of the Problem,” Museum News, November/December 2009, 88, no. 6: 52-57 and 59-60. 11

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 38-39. 12

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 38-39. 13

Terri Hudgins, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2012. 14

In a survey created for this research, all but one respondent answered no to the question “Is caring for the

environment part of your institute’s mandate or mission?” This was echoed in Brohy and Wylie’s The

Green Museum. 15

National Museum of Natural History and Cristián Samper, Knowledge for a Sustainable Future:

Strategic Plan, 2010-2015 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, 2010), 5.

6

upon environmentally sound practices at the Museum.”16

Similarly the NMNH included

sustainability in its mission statement, which is to “increase knowledge and inspire

learning about nature and culture, through outstanding research, collections, exhibitions,

and education, in support of a sustainable future.”17

The NMNH also titled their 2010-

2015 strategic plan “Knowledge for a Sustainable Future” describing goals such as

“[improving] technology and facilities operations to meet sustainable criteria,”

“incorporating sustainability standards throughout our facilities and operations,” and

“[assessing] long-term relationships between humans and their physical and biotic

environments.” This plan also thoughtfully states “our aim will be to create experiences

that invite visitors to connect with science at a very personal level, understand its

relevance to society, and recognize their role in the preservation of the natural world and

in building a sustainable future.”18

Some professional associations and non-collections-holding institutions have also

acknowledged sustainability. The AIC has stated in their Code of Ethics and Guidelines

for Practice that “the conservation professional shall practice in a manner that minimizes

personal risks and hazards to co-workers, the public, and the environment.”19

The

Institute of Conservation (ICON), a UK equivalent to AIC, has also stated in their

professional guidelines that “the Conservator-Restorer shall strive to use only products,

materials and procedures which, according to the current level of knowledge, will not

16

American Museum of Natural History Sustainability Practices Committee, “Sustainability Principles,”

American Museum of Natural History, http://www.amnh.org/about-us/sustainability-principles (accessed

July 29, 2011). 17

NMNH and Samper, Knowledge for a Sustainable Future, 12. 18

NMNH and Samper, Knowledge for a Sustainable Future, 26; NMNH and Samper, Knowledge for a

Sustainable Future, 30; NMNH and Samper, Knowledge for a Sustainable Future, 10, NMNH and Samper,

Knowledge for a Sustainable Future, 18. 19

American Institute for Conservation, “Codes of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice,”

http://www.conservation - us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewPage&PageID=858&d:

%5CCFusionMX7%5Cverity%5CData%5Cdummy.txt (accessed September 15, 2011).

7

harm the cultural heritage, the environment or people.”20

Similarly the 2007-2017

strategic plan for the Smithsonian Institution Museum Conservation Institute (MCI) states

“our world’s cultural legacy, like its environment, is precious and fragile, and both

require responsible stewardship.”21

Some heritage preservation professionals may question the importance of

sustainability, but the real question is when has concern about the preservation of past,

present and future of culture not been important? As Brophy and Wylie have said in their

book The Green Museum, “What we do today affects tomorrow.”22

20

Institute for Conservation, “Guidelines for Practice,”

http://www.icon.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=121 (accessed February 1, 2012) 21

Museum Conservation Institute, Our Next 10 Years, MCI Strategic Plan 2007-2017 (Washington, DC:

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, 2010), 1. 22

Brophy and Wylie, “Saving Collections and the Planet,” 52-57 and 59-60.

8

PART I

Thinking and Acting Sustainably

9

Chapter 1

“Our standards present the problem, but not the solution.”23

The focus of this research is collections care, a fairly new concept in conservation.

Collections care, also known as collections conservation or collections management, broadly

includes any practice applied to a group of artifacts to ensure its future preservation.24

Collections care practices can affect the whole collection, such as maintaining appropriate

humidity, or they may be unique to a single artifact, such as a custom storage mount; they

also vary in invasiveness from minimizing exposure to light to routine vacuuming or

labeling. The title of the person in charge of collection care varies from institution to

institution but is commonly a collections manager, conservator or registrar and involves the

collaborative efforts of curators, preparators and facilities management staff. Throughout

this research they will collectively be known as collections care professionals.

Closely aligned with collections care is preventive conservation, which is an

approach that aims to minimize or avoid agents of deterioration through control of the

environment in which artifacts are stored, displayed and transported.25

Preventive

conservation measures can include “actions taken on the object's surroundings to prevent

damage from fire, theft, vandalism, shocks and vibrations, water, dust, pollutants, pests,

23

Nicholas Poole, "10 Challenges," slide 19. 24

For the purposes of this research, a collection can be any public or private group of artifacts, including

libraries, museums and archives. 25

Emily Kaplan, “Integrating Preventive Conservation into a Collections Move and Rehousing Project at

the National Museum of the American Indian,” Journal of The American Institute for Conservation 44, no.

3 (2005): 226.

10

light, ultraviolet radiation, temperature or humidity.”26

It is important to practice

preventive conservation because “[an artifact’s] rate of deterioration slows significantly

with proper preventive care” and also it “will decrease the need for costly and time-

consuming conservation treatments.”27

Both terms are often used interchangeably within

professional literature but the preferred term in this research will be collections care with

the knowledge that this includes preventive conservation.

Collections care is important to both the short and long-term life of a collection, but

it is resource and process intensive. Much of what collections care professionals do is not

seen or noticed by the general public. Collections care, much like sustainability, is not easily

quantifiable in the same way public programming or renovations are - “it’s a cost without a

clear return.”28

Within museums, the collections department has often fallen behind other

departments when it comes to sustainability but “collections deserve the best care possible,

i.e., curatorial practice that incorporates careful consideration of fiscal and scientific

responsibility.” 29

This includes practices that may seem unrewarding, small or invisible,

such as sustainable practices, which to some may seem unrelated to collections care.

In exploring the nexus between caring for collections and the environment, the

highest level of collections care principles was kept in mind while simultaneously asking

“how can our new generation of standards make use of new knowledge about living in

sympathy with our environment?”30

Put another way: Can what needs to be done be done

26

Carole Dignard, Heather Dumka and Joan Marshall, “What is Conservation,” Canadian Association for

Conservation, http://www.cac-accr.ca/what-is-conservation (accessed July 23, 2011). 27

National Park Service, “Appendix K: Curatorial Care of Textile Objects,” Museum Handbook,

([Washington, DC]: 2002). http://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/MHI/Appendix%20K.pdf (accessed

September 23, 2011). 28


Meredith Lane, “Features - The Homeless Specimen - Handling Relinquished Natural History

Collections,” Museum News, January/February 2001, 80, no. 1: 60. 30

Nicholas Poole, "10 Challenges," slide 23.

11

using different practices or materials that are more sustainable? In a real-life situation

this could be answered by taking any particular practice, measuring a base-line of what is

being consumed or disposed of and either reduce that or use different, more sustainable

consumables. For example condition reporting consumes paper, printer ink and

electricity, which can be made more sustainable by using 100% recycled paper, changing

light-bulbs to energy efficient ones in all rooms used, or digitally editing the reports to

minimize waste in reprinting. In this example none of the sustainable practices or

materials are much more costly or inconvenient but due to the all-encompassing nature of

sustainability it may seem like change is difficult since there is no clear place to start.

Implementing sustainability, like collections care, is a gradual change -- comparable to a

dimmer switch as opposed to a light switch. The ideal cannot be immediately attained but

a slow, methodical transition from current habits to better ones will ultimately lead to the

best possible circumstances. But if the goal is to simply do better, changes in practice

become difficult to justify and a new question emerges, what does it mean to do better?

Sustainability is such a new facet to collections care that there is no clear answer

to this question. A good place to start may be to examine the difference between being

“less bad” and “more good.”31

Take the use of toluene in adhesives as an example. It

would be less bad to use a smaller amount of it, thereby reducing the volatile organic

compounds let out into the air, but shifting to nonvolatile based adhesives is more good.

The intentions of both are similar, but being less bad can lead to a false sense of progress

whereas being more good not only reduces the negative impacts, but also adds positive

ones. In other circumstances the difference between the two may be less obvious,

31

American Association of Museums, "Green Machine: An Interview with Architect and Industrialist William

McDonough," Museum – American Association of Museums, November/December 2008, 87, no. 6: 54-61.

12

requiring more research and asking colleagues to provide insight. This lack of easily

accessible knowledge is one of many roadblocks for incorporating sustainability into

collections care since “unlike farms, museums are not always driven by hard-nosed

‘lowest cost’ economics in each decision because of the tangible/intangible values of our

collections, which, ethically, we avoid compromising.”32

Part I is divided into seven aspects of collections care explored though the

sustainable use of materials, energy, water and chemicals, including both less bad and

more good practices. Some aspects of collections care are already sustainable, and the

suggestion is to simply continue or increase their practice, while others require a slight

change but are easily integrated into daily operations. Some recommendations however

may take more time, money and effort to enact but increasing sustainability is worth it for

the long term care of collections. Collections care professionals have within their means

the ability to act on short-term, easily accomplished changes while working towards

gradual long-term goals. Small changes that cost no money, such as turning off lights when

not needed, have a positive sustainable impact that eventually becomes second nature

which can lead to more costly actions, such as replacing light bulbs, which then may lead

to greater changes, such as purchasing sustainably sourced energy to power those light

bulbs. Since there are no guidelines or checklists for sustainable collections care and

since no two collections are the same, the following is intended to be a wide-ranging

reference for collections staff to “replace antiquated storage modes in collections.”33

32

Thomas Strang, “I’ve Got Bugs in my Pockets and I Don’t Know What To Do About Them,” Museum

News, July/August 2005, 84, no. 4: 46-47. 33

NMNH, Understanding Our World, 26. It is not the author’s suggestion to immediately replace materials

with more sustainable ones, which may be financially difficult and create much waste, but rather to make

more thoughtful decisions when purchasing new materials or implementing new processes.

13

Chapter 2

Environmental Monitoring: Temperature, Relative Humidity and

Heating/Ventilation/Air-Conditioning (HVAC) Systems

Environmental monitoring has undergone the biggest shift towards sustainability.

Many decades ago the standard of 50% relative humidity (RH) and 70°Farenheit was

mentioned regarding ideal temperature and RH to store artifacts. Strict adherence to this

was largely viewed as the ideal, static goal all collections should strive for. A museum,

once they reached this goal with minimal fluctuations, could take pride in knowing they

were doing the best. In the long term this perspective proved to be flawed.34

Not only are

most collections multi-media, preventing any narrow range from being safe for all

artifacts, but monitoring and maintaining this environment proved a significant use of

time and money that could have been spent on other areas of need.

Articles discussing the problematic aspects of the traditional environmental

control parameters have argued that collections are safe in a wider range of temperature

and humidity levels than previously thought. David Erhart and Marion Mecklenburg in

their 1994 article “Relative Humidity Re-Examined” stated that “there is no one ‘ideal’

RH for museums, only values and ranges that minimize specific types of change in

materials and objects.”35

Significant changes slowly occurring, such as seasonally from

winter to summer, is less of a concern than more frequent sudden changes, such as day

34


David Erhardt and Marion Mecklenburg, “Relative Humidity Reexamined,” in “IIC Preventive

Conservation Practice, Theory and Research – Preprints of the Contributions to the Ottawa Congress, 12-16

September 1994,” ed. Ashok Roy and Perry Smith (1994), 37.

14

and night. Considering different materials have different safe zones in regards to RH and

temperature, a wider range is also best for the collection as a whole.36

This discussion has

continued with publications such as the 2009 Draft Guiding Principles prepared by the

International Group of Organizers of Large-Scale Exhibitions, also known as the Bizot

Group, who discussed expanding environmental condition as a means of reducing the

carbon footprint of loans.37

Many scholarly presentations have been made to address this

document and Matthew Siegal, Chair of Conservation and Collections Management at the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA, Boston), planned and hosted a conference,

“Rethinking the Museum Climate,” along with the Getty Conservation Institute in 2010

to address the Draft Guiding Principles.38

In deciding on a range of temperature and RH, it would benefit collections care

professionals to determine what is most valuable – financially, historically, and culturally

– in their collection and then to consider that, along with what material is most prevalent

in the collection. Some collections have mostly a single material such as paper and an

ideal temperature range can be easily deciphered, but most are multi-media collections

and have a greater challenge. Also, materials that have undergone conservation and

restoration treatments are now composite objects, such as a ceramic repaired with an

acrylic adhesive.39

Another consideration is balancing the safe zones for materials stable

in a wide range of temperatures, such as stone, glass and fired pottery, with those that are

36

Erhardt and Mecklenburg, “Relative Humidity Reexamined,” 37; Audience discussion, “Linking the

Environment and Heritage Conservation: Presentations, Tips and Discussions” (conference presentation

discussion at American Institute for Conservation’s 2012 Conference, Albuquerque, new Mexico, May 9,

2012). 37

National Museum Director’s Conference, “NMDC Guiding Principles for Reducing Museums’ Carbon

Footprint,” http://www.nationalmuseums.org.uk/media/documents/what_we_do_documents/guiding_

principles_reducing_carbon_footprint.pdf (accessed January 29, 2013). 38

Elizabeth Byrne, e-mailed message to author, September 18, 2012. 39

Rose Cull, e-mailed message to author, January 31, 2013.

15

more sensitive, such as leather, wood and many textiles.40

Materials already in poor

condition are also more sensitive than those in better condition.41

Put into practice, a

collection may lean toward environmental conditions suitable for sensitive materials

which may approach the boundary of those for stable materials. For example collections

of textiles, where the ideal temperature range is between 65ºF and 75ºF, may benefit from

a temperature lower than the ideal since “low temperatures […] may help slow down the

rate of deterioration for textiles that are damaged by weighting”, although considerations

should be made since textiles, which are hygroscopic, can suffer “dimensional change

and mechanical stress that can lead to breakage and structural damage of weak yarns”

from fluctuations in temperature and RH.42

Regardless of the circumstances, any change

should be monitored rigorously for any indication of whether the new conditions are

suitable. This should not be a deterrent in moving away from the standard temperature

and RH model and into a range more appropriate to the collection at hand.

When changing environmental conditions, many aspects such as material

sensitivity to fluctuations and outdoor climate need to be researched beforehand. One of

the resources available to aid this is the Image Permanence Iinstitute (IPI)’s Dew Point

Calculator, an easy temperature-RH-dew point scale that identifies the risk level based on

the environmental conditions entered by the user of four types of aging: natural aging,

mechanical damage, mold risk and metal corrosion.43

The Dew Point Calculator is the

result of a multi-year study of environmental monitoring, energy reduction and

collections care that has produced many important resources for collections care and is

40

National Museum Director’s Conference, “NMDC Guiding Principles.” 41

Brophy and Wylie, “Saving Collections and the Planet,” 52-57 and 59-60. 42

National Park Service, “Appendix K.” 43

Image Permanence Institute, “Dew Point Calculator,” Rochester Institute of Technology,

http://www.dpcalc.org/ (accessed December 17, 2012).

16

available at no charge at www.dpcalc.org. This environmental monitoring study, further

discussed in “Encouraging Sustainability within Collections Care,” is the largest study of

its kind and has changed the way the collections care professionals see sustainable

environmental monitoring. For example the Society of Cincinnati is “currently looking

into altering the seasonal set points of [their] HVAC system in the hopes of saving on

energy (this is per IPI’s recent findings and guidelines for Sustainable Environments in

Storage Areas).”44

Similarly Museum of Photographic Arts (MOPA) is “revisiting these

[temperature and RH] ranges in light of recent research re-evaluating the common

industry requirements that allow only very minor fluctuations in these numbers

throughout the day. […] Our investigation into this is driven in large part to the potential

costs saving that might be achieved, provided that the collection is not jeopardized.”45

Modifying environmental conditions has many benefits in addition to being more

mindful of collections: it relaxes the burden of rigorously monitoring and maintaining

environmental conditions, financially beneficial since HVAC equipment does not have to

work as hard to maintain a narrow range as well as sustainable since less energy is used.

Furthermore, the reality is that many institutions do not have the resources to attain, let

alone maintain, a narrow ideal. In their 1994 article “Let’s Be Honest – Realistic

Environmental Parameters for Loaned Objects” authors Jonathan Ashley Smith, Nick

Umney and David Ford mentioned a story where a curator asked a group of conservators

how to overcome the problem of not being able to meet a lending institution’s specified

environmental conditions. The conservators’ response was “We lie!”

44

Whitney Robertson, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2012. 45

Tom Callas, e-mailed message to author, October 10, 2012.

17

In addition to HVAC systems, many institutions use passive environmental

control measures in their collections which can likewise be made more sustainable.

Keeping artifacts in an enclosed container, such as a cabinet, drawer or box, is a common

practice in passive environmental control where the container acts as a buffer, reducing

the fluctuations in temperature and RH. Currently there are few sustainable museum-

quality boxes available (further explored in “Storage Materials” as well as in “Part II:

Finding a Sustainable Museum-Quality Material”). Currently Lydamore upright

document box manufactured by Conservation by Design (CXD) and the Green Document

Case by Conservation Resources International, LLC, are the only boxes marketed for

collections storage, although there are many boxes made from recycled content cardboard

that may be suitable for some archives or libraries that only require short term storage.

Another passive environmental measure is the use of desiccants to regulate RH

within a confined space, such as an exhibition case, by absorbing and releasing

atmospheric moisture. Desiccants used in collections care are often made of solid silica

pellets, even when called a gel, and can be purchased commercially under the brands

such as PROSorb, Art Sorb or RHapid Gel.46

Some types of silica pellets have a moisture

indicator additive that changes color for easy monitoring. This moisture indicator can

come in various colors but is often blue with the active ingredient being a cobalt chloride

additive. Unlike colorless silica, blue self-indicating silica is hazardous to the

environment due to the cobalt chloride and if disposed of should be considered industrial

waste.47

It would be more sustainable to use a small amount of self-indicating silica

46

Desiccants made from other substances such as activated charcoal, calcium sulfate or calcium chloride

are more common in other industries and will not be discussed. 47

Talas, “Material Safety Data Sheet – Self-Indicating (Blue) Silica Gel,”

http://talasonline.com/photos/msds/silicagel.pdf (accessed November 17, 2012); National Park Service,

18

pellets, RH indicator cards (ideally cobalt chloride free themselves), or RH meters in

addition to the colorless silica pellets. A new version of self-indicating silica pellets,

which uses the additive methyl violet to change color is currently being marketed as “an

environmentally safe choice” since it “is virtually inert and has no known adverse effect

on the environment,” and “is not classified as hazardous waste.”48

Another sustainable environmental monitoring practice is to switch from

hyrgrothermographs to electronic thermo-hygrometers or data loggers which are smaller,

less expensive, do not use up materials such as paper and ink, and are often rechargeable

or can use rechargeable batteries. The resulting data is also more easily graphed and

storing historic data does not take up physical space as paper charts do.

In environmental monitoring, air filtration goes hand in hand with temperature

and RH and, concerning the quality of air, there is no change in the ideal as there should

be as little atmospheric pollution as possible. In some ways “collections managers have

been following green practices for decades in their storage areas with attention to good

air quality (using low-volatile organic compound or VOC materials and smart ventilation

strategies).”49

Approaching air quality with a sustainable mindset acknowledges that

there is a clear link between pollution outside and inside the collections facility –

reducing the former inevitably reduces the latter. Although a single person’s actions to

minimize air pollution may be discouraging, the spirit of actions such as taking public

transit or cycling to work and planting trees will have a cumulative effect on air quality,

Conserve O Gram - Cobalt Indicating Silica Gel Health and Safety Update (Washington, DC, 2001),

http://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/02-15.pdf (accessed November 17, 2012). 48

Gaylord Bros., “Silica Gel, Indicating, Orange,”

http://www.gaylord.com/adblock.asp?abid=15594&search_by=desc&search_for=silica&mpc=WW

(accessed November 17, 2012); Silicagelpackets.com, “Material Safety Data Sheet – Orange Silica Gel,”

http://www.gaylord.com/ad_block/MSDS-SilicaGel-15594.pdf (accessed November 17, 2012). 49

Brophy and Wylie, The Green Museum, 6.

19

inside and outside the collections facility. Within collections holding institutions,

controlling HVAC system operations are likely beyond the expected duties of collections

care professionals, often left to the facilities or building and grounds departments, but it is

not unreasonable to inquire about and request more sustainability from outside

departments. For example, there are HVAC cleaning chemicals that are marketed as

sustainable alternatives to those commonly used which may be equally effective.

Within an exhibition space environmental monitoring is a unique situation since

the presence of humans and increased exposure to the outside is to be expected. In this

circumstance, environmental monitoring can again include sustainable ideals through the

use of cobalt chloride free desiccants, using thermo-hygrometers, modifying narrow

environmental controls and using sustainable materials for cases and platforms.

The connection between the quality of the environment outside a collections

facility, the quality of the environment inside a collections facility, and the rate at which

artifacts age have clear, direct connections with each other. “Mitigating global levels of

pollution is an important aspect of mission fulfillment for those in the preservation

business. Pollution in Los Angeles is made of toxic particulate from China – the very

same particulates museums are trying to keep away from objects.”50

50


20

Chapter 3

Electricity and Lighting

As museums become increasingly concerned with finances, electricity usage is

often mentioned as an area where savings can be made. “In some climates, easily half or

more of the annual energy consumption can go towards dehumidification in summer.”51

Many institutions have already begun to reduce their light and electricity usage, often

with the primary goal of financial gain, but when thoughtfully and efficiently done, the

effects go beyond that and include a smaller carbon footprint, a less negative impact on

the environment and collections, and a built-in preventive conservation program.

Lighting and electricity are so ever-present and needed in daily life that their

overconsumption often goes unnoticed. Although a minimum amount is needed for

human comfort and safety, there are many ways energy use can be reduced that require

little to no investment. Since there is not a single list of sustainable energy practices

that can equally apply to all collections, energy reduction plans need to reflect the

unique circumstances of the storage facility and regional energy use guidelines with

tips gathered from many sources. The following information intends to be a jumping off

point for collections care professionals to create and enact their own protocols. Some

will be able to go above and beyond, while others may be able to enact only those

requiring the least investment.

A simple first step in sustainable energy use is to unplug any equipment that is

rarely used or does not need to be constantly on. Due to a phenomenon known as standby

51


21

power, some electronics and electrical equipment are designed to use energy while in

sleep mode and in some cases even when turned off.52

Similarly lights can be turned off

when not in use or can be placed on motion sensors or timers to ensure they are only in

use when needed. Sustainable lighting practices are already widely in use, such as at The

Society of the Cincinnati, which has motion sensors in storage while the Cape Fear

Museum has them in some exhibition cases.53

MOPA put sensors on exhibition lights

“primarily as a cost-saving measure, with the understanding that it would also have a

beneficial effect on the long term preservation of the collection.”54

In open storage facilities where artifacts are exposed, minimizing light use is

common practice but it is applicable even where artifacts are not. Additionally, bank

lighting can be utilized or installed so that a common walkway can be lit without lighting

the whole storage facility. The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (MFIT)

utilizes this practice by having secondary lights that can be turned on for individual

aisles. In facilities where the storage space and the staff’s workspaces are together,

lighting needs to be on for comfort and safety, but if it is possible to turn off certain lights

or to utilize natural light, then it should be taken advantage of. Not only is minimizing light

a sustainable practice, it is also a good collections care practice. All artifacts susceptible to

damage from light or ultra-violet radiation should be covered since damage is cumulative

and irreversible, and can result in a change of color or be a catalyst for deterioration.55

52

Science Daily, “ ‘Vampire’ Appliances -- They Suck Electricity Even When Switched Off -- Cost

Consumers $3 Billion A Year, Says Cornell Energy Expert,”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/09/020926065912.htm (accessed July 23, 2012). 53

Whitney Robertson, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2012; Terri Hudgins, e-mailed message to

author, October 1, 2012. 54

Tom Callas, e-mailed message to author, October 10, 2012. 55

National Park Service, “Appendix K.”

22

When exploring sustainable light use the kind of light bulbs employed are an

important factor. Currently light-emitting diode (LED) lights are one of the most energy

efficient light bulbs and museums such as MFA, Boston are switching to them in all

areas.56

They also have a clear financial benefit, as the The McMichael Canadian Art

Collection saw when their energy bills were reduced after switching to LED lights.57

It is

important for collections care professionals to continue researching advancements in

lighting and to make thoughtful, researched decisions when enacting change because of

the rapidly changing nature of technology and electronics. For example a research group

which included scientists from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam recently published

an article that concluded that LED lights were discoloring the yellow pigments in Van

Gogh paintings.58

This article has been criticized for its findings which utilized a six year

old spectral chart and highlighted atypical LED lights with unusually high blue without

clarification.59

The initial article was heavily sensationalized by the mainstream press

while the clarifying article was not.

Another common sustainable energy practice is to switch to energy efficient

equipment and light bulbs such as those approved by ENERGY STAR, “a joint program

of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping

us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and

56


Sue Maltby, e-mailed message to author, October 2, 2012. 58

[Koen Janssens, Bruno Brunetti, Costanza Miliani, Letizia Monico, Ella Hendriks, Muriel Geldof,

Marine Cotte, Gerald Falkenberg?] “LED lights may be bad for Van Gogh Paintings,”

http://www.vangogh.ua.ac.be/ (accessed February 24, 2013). 59

The International Magazine for Architectural Detail and Commercial Lighting, “Study wrongly implies

LED to blame for van Gogh masterpiece damage,”

http://www.mondoarc.com/news/1766260/study_wrongly_implies_led_to_blame_for_van_gogh_masterpie

ce_damage.html (accessed February 24, 2013).

23

practices.”60

In using energy efficient equipment and electronics, a collections facility

will not only save energy but also money and reduce their carbon footprint. A list of

ENERGY STAR approved products are noted on their website. Many of the available

products (e.g. HVAC equipment, vacuums, cameras, office appliances, etc.) can be used

in collections. In using long-lasting energy efficient light bulbs and electronics, the need

to dispose of them is reduced, lessening the hazardous waste produced by the institution.

Although the initial investment of purchasing new equipment is a clear hurdle since some

institutions “don't have the luxury to invest in the big ticket items, like energy efficient

appliances,” the long-term financial savings coupled with the sustainable benefits may be

worth it.61

Utilizing renewable energy such as solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal is a

way that institutions can include sustainability into their culture with only slight changes

to their daily operations. In some cases it can be as simple as purchasing sustainably

sourced energy, often through their current energy supplier. MOPA “participates in a

program with our local electricity supplier to reduce our energy bills in return for our

promise to reduce our energy use in times of peak demand.” 62

Museums can mitigate the

negative effects of energy consumption by buying “Green Certificates” or offsetting their

carbon through other means such as tree planting or buying coupons.63

These means are

not without their controversies since they are not regulated and cannot easily be verified,

60

Energy Star, “About Energy Star,” http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=about.ab_index (accessed

September 10th

2012) 61

Meghan Grossman Hansen, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2011. 62


For further information check the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Buying Clean Energy” web site

http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/buying-clean-electricity.

24

leading to less than honest for-profit companies and their customers who pay for the

privilege of continuing their destructive habits rather than change them.

Some museums have taken up the initial cost of installing equipment that collects

sustainable energy from the environment. The Brooklyn Children’s Museum (BCM)

utilizes geothermal wells which “draw stable-temperature water from Brooklyn′s

underground aquifers to a series of heat pump air handlers that control the temperature of

the building” and, in comparison to traditional HVAC systems, eliminates waste-water

created while using less energy.64

Many museums, such as the Toledo Museum of Art,

the Columbia Museum of Art and the Big Pit National Coal Mining Museum, have

installed solar panels, which have become more economically feasible than in the past.65

These actions can raise a visitor’s awareness about the importance of sustainability. The

MFA, Boston is “currently researching ways to produce our own energy through solar,

wind, and geothermal technologies.”66

Although these options have not been fully

explored in relation to the collections facility, the mere presence of sustainable energy in

a museum means the collections department benefits from it.

When creating a sustainable energy and electricity plan it is important to note that,

although the whole space should be considered, it could be executed in sections. For

example Art Institute of Chicago’s Executive Director of Conservation Frank Zucari,

along with a team, upgraded their institute’s lighting system zone by zone and “reduced

64

Brooklyn Children’s Museum, “The Green Museum,”

http://brooklynkids.org/index.php/aboutus/greenmuseum (accessed September 12, 2011); Brophy and Wylie,

The Green Museum, 23. 65

Toledo Museum of Art, “Solar Panel Installation,” http://www.toledomuseum.org/about/green/solar/

(accessed January 23, 2013); Columbia Museum of Art, “About – Solar,” Columbia Museum of Art,

http://www.columbiamuseum.org/about/solar (accessed January 23, 2013); David Greene, “Coal Mining

Museum Welcomes Solar Panels,” npr.org, http://www.npr.org /2012/12/20/167688230/coal-mining-

museum-welcomes-solar-panels (accessed January 23, 2013). 66

Elizabeth Byrne, e-mailed message to author, September 18, 2012.

25

electricity use and controlled the cumulative exposure of objects to light through a new

sunshade system that diffuses and redirects sunlight and works in conjunction with the

artificial lighting system.” This integrated approach to lighting saves energy but is also

“good conservation practice: chiefly controlling light, humidity and air pollution.”67

67

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 44.

26

Chapter 4

Emergency Planning, Mitigation & Response

Emergency planning, mitigation and response, here described collectively as

emergency preparedness, is a facet of collections care that collections staff are

increasingly including as part of their roles as caregivers. Emergency preparedness aims

to identify, avoid and respond to risks large and small, which can include natural and

man-made disasters, pest infestation, theft and utility failure, amongst others. These risks

vary from institution to institution and are influenced by factors such as climate, security

of the facility, location of storage in relation to ground level, or presence of windows.

The connection between emergency preparedness and sustainability is made strikingly

clear considering many of the risks collections are preparing for are products of or

magnified by climate change.68

In 2005 the Heritage Health Index Report surveyed

collecting institutions’ conservation and preservation practices, including emergency

preparedness, and reported that poor environmental controls, inadequate staffing and poor

planning for disasters threatened a substantial loss of collections.69

Each institution will be able to prepare for emergencies to different extents

depending largely on whether the time and staff are available. With resources such as the

Emergency Response Wheel now downloadable as a smartphone application and

Heritage Preservation Alliance for Response’s thorough website, it is becoming more

68

During the writing of this research several environmental events occurred. Most recently Hurricane

Sandy struck portions of the Caribbean, and the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, causing the

total or partial destruction of many museums and collections from flooding, winds, loss of power,

prevention of staff from reaching their collections and the less obvious effects of the loss of revenue. 69


27

possible for institutions of all sizes to have emergency response plans. As such it is

important to reinforce that sustainability can be easily included in emergency

preparedness by creating and editing plans digitally, as was recently done at the Charlotte

Museum of History, before the final hard copy edits.70

Furthermore, an emergency

response cart can have sustainable qualities with supplies such as reusable water

absorption materials, rolling carts made from recycled plastic or energy efficient

equipment such as vacuums or battery-free flashlights.

Since views on sustainability are fervently being discussed in many fields it is

important to continuously keep up to date on current information and practices. An

example comes from a June 2012 posting on the conservation list serve DistList which

sparked a debate on the sustainability of fire suppression systems. Amy McKune,

Director of Museum Collections at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and

Western Art in Indianapolis, Indiana, was looking for advice on whether replacing their

Halon fire suppression system with a Novec™ 1230 system for their collections facility

was appropriate and worth the less harmful environmental effects. Myriam Lavoie, object

conservator at the Centre de Conservation du Québec in Québec City, Canada, responded

that their city was asked to phase out Halon fire suppression systems in favor of a more

sustainable option. Halotron, a similar product to Novec™ 1230, was tested along with

an ABC fire extinguisher and a water mist extinguisher with the help of a firefighter.71

These tests involved extinguishing a fire with each system in a mock-collection

consisting of a painting, newsprint and books. While the ABC system left an easy to

70

Anne Lane, e-mailed message to author, 71

An ABC fire extinguisher is one that can suppress class A fires (ordinary combustible material such as

wood and paper), class B fires (flammable and combustable liquids), and class C fires (electrical

equipment).

28

clean powder, the Halotron system left an impossible to clean residue, despite claims on

the company’s website that it works “without generating an undesirable solid residue.”72

The possible environmental benefits in this case need to be measured against the possible

loss from fire and possible damage from the residue.73

To this Monona Rossol, president and founder of Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety,

Inc., a not-for-profit corporation providing health and safety services to the arts,

responded with various reasons why a substance may be better for the environment but

still harmful to humans, which may make the environmental benefits less valuable.74

This

debate of safety for the environment centers around a substance’s ozone depleting

qualities, of which the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the Novec™ 1230 Fire

Protection Fluid states “this substance does not contribute to ozone depletion; it has an

atmospheric lifetime of approximately 5 days and a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of

1 (IPCC 2001 Method).”75

Halon’s MSDS mentions nothing but the company’s website

states it is a “safe, effective, environmentally acceptable chemical blend based on the raw

material HCFC-123” and was introduced to replace the severe ozone depleting Halon

1211.76

Monona Rossol points out that there is often no data such as those relating to

cancer or reproductive health. In this case the MSDS for Halon states that it is not a

carcinogen and has undergone extensive animal testing and did not affect the

72

American Pacific Corporation, “Products – About Haltron®

1,” http://www.halotron.com/halotron1.php

(accessed January 13, 2013). 73

Amy McKune, e-mail to DistList mailing list, instance: 26:4, June 16, 2012, http://cool.conservation-

us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/2012/0663.html (accessed June 16, 2012); Myriam Lavoie, e-mail to

DistList mailing list, instance: 26:5, June 23, 2012, http://cool.conservation-us.org/byform/mailing-

lists/cdl/2012/0673.html (accessed June 23, 2012). 74

Monona Rossol, e-mail to DistList mailing list, instance: 26:7, July 9, 2012, http://cool.conservation-

us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/2012/0717.html (accessed July 9, 2012). 75

3M, “MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET 3M™ Novec ™ 1230 Fire Protection Fluid [FK-5-1-12],”

http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/mediawebserver?mwsId=SSSSSuUn_zu8l00x482xNx29Mv70k17zHvu9lx

tD7SSSSSS-- (accessed January 13, 2013). 76

American Pacific Corporation, “Products – About Haltron®

1.”

29

reproductive performance in rats although did show an increase in non-life threatening

tumors. The MSDS for Novec™ 1230 Fire Protection Fluid does not mention any similar

relevant information. In both cases this does not indicate anything one way or the other

since “OSHA [Occupational Health and Safety Administration] doesn't require missing

data to be mentioned and still allows manufacturers to say ‘not listed as a carcinogen by

IARC [International Agency for Research on Cancer], NTP [National Toxicology

Program] or OSHA’ which actually means there is no data.”77

In this instance the question led to a discussion with no conclusive answer and

there may still not be any clear answer. It will be up to the individual to decide to stay

with what is already in place, to act on what research is available, or to continue to

research until a more decisive answer is found. Either way it is clear that the connection

between sustainability and collections care is multi-faceted and every aspect, even

emergency preparedness, is affected by this relationship.

77

Monona Rossol, e-mail to DistList mailing list, instance: 26:7, July 9, 2012, http://cool.conservation-

us.org/byform/mailing-lists/cdl/2012/0717.html (accessed July 9, 2012).

30

Chapter 5

Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

IPM is the combination of all actions taken to prevent, monitor and eliminate

pests in the collection environment.78

Often this has focused around the collections

environment and health of the staff, but the health of the global environment is equally

important. “We are constantly re-adjusting our perceptions of acceptable pest-control

practices based on increased knowledge and recognition of downstream effects.”79

Due to past practices that “often involved regular applications of toxic chemicals

to collection areas and actual collections,” the use of minimal chemicals or materials that

are harmful to people or collections is already the norm.80

As a result, preventative

measures have become “the first, and most fundamental step in pest management” which

is largely explored through other parts of this research.81

After exploring professional

literature, five common IPM practices are mentioned, along with how they are included

in other aspects of this research.

First upgrading and repairing the building envelope and utilizing closed storage

shelving mitigates pest entry into the collection and is explored in the “Exhibition and

Storage Facility Design or Renovation” chapter. Enclosing materials known to attract

pests in storage boxes is an IPM practice and the “Storage Materials” chapter along with

78

“Pests,” in Conservation-Wiki.com (American Institute for Conservation, updated on December 30,

2011), http://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Pests (accessed September 2, 2012). 79

Strang, “I’ve Got Bugs,” 46-47. 80

Integrated Pest Management Working Group, “Main,” MuseumPests.net (accessed April 4, 2011). 81

“Pests,” in Conservation-Wiki.com (American Institute for Conservation, updated on December 30,

2011), http://www.conservation-wiki.com/wiki/Pests (accessed September 2, 2012).

31

the second part of this research mentions the sustainability of materials. Proper

environmental monitoring often deters pests from entering the facility due to the colder

nature of storage environments and is part of a collection’s environmental monitoring and

discussed in the “Environmental Monitoring” chapter. Furthermore any artifacts entering

the facility should be thoroughly inspected and the “Documentation” chapter mentions

sustainable practices in this. Finally any outbreaks should be treated with modified

temperature or anoxic environments, which can be done with energy efficient equipment

and without the use of chemicals.

Every collections facility has a different set of circumstances that will affect the

likelihood and species of pests. We already know that “better pest management doesn’t

mean more chemicals” but we should always strive to learn more about up-to-date

collections care practices.82

These suggestions follow best practices and as shown in

other parts of this research best practices can often have a sustainable facet to them.

82

Integrated Pest Management Working Group, “Main.”

32

Chapter 6

Storage Materials

The proper care of collections includes storage systems such as boxes, trays, bags

and supports made from materials such as boards, foams, papers, fabrics, plastics and

adhesives. All these were at one point a raw material, harvested, processed, packaged,

shipped, distributed, used and later disposed of. Sustainability can be incorporated into

any of these stages. Sustainable materials will be discussed in depth in Part II but the

following information explores other facets of storage materials that can be or are already

sustainable, focusing on companies doing innovative, often unrecognized work.

Throughout the manufacturing process the energy, water and chemicals needed to

produce storage materials can be sustainably managed. One manufacturer that is a leader

in innovation is Peterboro Cardboards Ltd., which makes mat boards that are also used in

mount and box making. Upon learning that the glue they used in manufacturing limited

the reprocessing of their products to low-quality goods such as housing shingles,

Peterboro changed their lamination process from a polyvinyl acetate (PVA) adhesive to a

more sustainable polymerized potato starch.83

This starch adhesive is unprecedented as it

took two years of development and trials between Peterboro and Penford, the patent-

holders of Peterboro’s equipment. Peterboro is likely the only manufacturer using this

process since “apparently we [at Peterboro] were the only matboard manufacturer that

83

This research does not intend to imply that these materials are not without their downsides. For example

starch may be a source of food for pests.

33

was willing to invest the time and money.”84

This starch is used in most of their mat

boards, including their conservation-grade purified wood fiber board.85

In the

manufacturing of their museum-grade 100% cotton board, the starch adhesive cannot be

used since the traditional PVA adhesive is needed in the high-heat manufacturing

process. PVA adhesive is used worldwide in cotton board production but “at present we

[at Peterboro] are running trials on several different techniques to see if we can overcome

the production issues and be the only manufacturer able to use water soluble glue on

cotton.”86

Since switching to the water-soluble potato starch, Peterboro has found use for

the “truckloads of trimmings” produced which are now “all … recycled into high quality

board products.”87

Furthermore paper and boards that are unusable for whatever reason are cut into

standard sizes and donated to local schools as art supplies – “this is a great way to recycle

and of course the benefits to the art students is a given.”88

Peterboro has not limited itself

to finding new uses for waste materials, but also to “looking for better ways to

manufacture responsibly,”89

We use recycled materials wherever allowable and purchase as much SFI

[Sustainable Forestry Initiative®] or FSC [Forest Stewardship Council

®] material

as possible. We have eliminated the use of anything that our Ministry of the

Environment will not let us put down the drain. In an effort to reduce packaging

we coat the interior of our museum board boxes with a medical grade calcium

carbonate application used to protect surgical instruments from possible acid

contamination during shipping. This has eliminated the need for an extra layer of

wrapping used by other companies. … [As well as] our new boiler that uses far

84

Alan Yaffe, e-mailed message to author, June 31, 2012. 85

Peterboro Cardboards, “Peterboro's Fall 2010 Newsletter,”

http://www.peterboromatboards.com/pdf/newsletter-2010-november.pdf (accessed May 22, 2012); Alan

Yaffe, e-mailed message to author, June 31, 2012. 86




Alan Yaffe, e-mailed message to author, June 31, 2012.

34

less energy and at present we are re-lamping our new plant with the newest

energy efficient lighting. I am constantly looking for ways to use less

consumables.90

Peterboro president Alan Yaffe has significantly increased the sustainability of the

company because of the realization that caring for the environment and a professional

career are not mutually exclusive.

I have been a passionate fly fisherman since I was 12 and over the years I have

been disheartened by the ongoing destruction of the environment and the loss of

stream habitat. As a result I am probably more environmentally active in both my

private life and as a manufacturer than most people. Since taking over Peterboro

ten years ago we have made great strides in changing the way we do things and

what we buy, in an effort to reduce our use of non-renewable raw materials.91

Another company working sustainably is Sealed Air, manufacturer of the range of

foams used in collections care known as Ethafoam®. Since introducing Bubble Wrap

® in

1960, Sealed Air has been on the forefront of innovation, especially with its Specialty

Materials unit which partners with their customers to research and develop how to

“maximize the use, profit and effectiveness of their products while minimizing the costs,

processes and impact on the environment that are normally associated with such gains.”92

The company has also created the SmartLife™ program, which aims “to raise awareness

about sustainable packaging and to advance Sealed Air’s sustainable mission within the

company’s larger business strategy” while “[helping] our customers make smarter

decisions by considering the entire lifecycle of their packaging materials. These include

production and manufacturing, application, performance and disposal and reclamation.”93

90



Sealed Air, “Determined and Innovative,” http://www.sealedairspecialtymaterials.com/la/es/pdf/

specialty-materials-overview.pdf (accessed July 15, 2012). 93

Sealed Air, “Sealed Air Ethafoam® MRC

® & HRC

® and Stratocell

® RC

®: Infinite Usage, Infinite Uses,”

http://www.sealedairprotects.com/la/es/pdf/recycled-foams.pdf (accessed July 15, 2012).

35

Sealed Air’s manufacturing practices, including those for Ethafoam®, are manufactured

with the considerations about sustainability such as increasing the stability of the material

(which minimizes the amount of material needed while maintaining the same quality of

protection and increases the materials ability to be reused), increasing the recyclability of

the material, and creating a bio-stable material that will not degrade to pollute the air or

water.94

Sealed Air also aims to reduce their “energy usage, water usage and […] our

environmental footprint by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and increasing our yield.”95

Largely unnoticed by the customer, some of the least sustainable aspects of

storage materials are their packaging, shipping and transportation. Unfortunately it is

often impossible to track the full life cycle of the materials, often travelling from original

source to manufacturer to vendor to redistributor to end user. Fortunately collections care

professionals can have an impact by purchasing directly from the manufacturer or

distributor, instead of a redistributor, reducing a product’s carbon footprint. For some

materials, purchasing in bulk may reduce the packaging but if the material expires or

negatively ages, the waste created may not be worth the packaging saved. Some

companies may utilize sustainable packing materials such as water-soluble starch peanuts

or space fillers made from waste paper or cardboard. In addition some manufactures

require impractical minimums for purchasing, which may be circumvented by sharing the

cost with other institutions.

As sustainability becomes more prominent in collections care, companies are

beginning to offer sustainable alternatives to common products. CXD offers a range of

museum-quality boards and boxes made exclusively from the waste from the production

94

Sealed Air, “Sealed Air Maximum Performance with Minimal Environmental Impact,”

http://www.sealedairprotects.com/ap/en/pdf/pp_sustainability.pdf (accessed July 15, 2012) 95

Sealed Air, “Infinite Usage, Infinite Uses.”

36

of their other paper and board products.96

These boards are further explored in greater

detail in Part II. Conservation Resources International, LLC, sells a sustainable document

case with the same properties as their non-sustainable versions, both lignin free and

alkaline in grey-white faced board, but its components “are made [with] low-impact,

clean, 100% renewable hydroelectric power and are manufactured carbon neutral …

through the acquisition of carbon-offset credits, or Verified Emission Reductions

(VER’s).” 97

These VERs “[neutralize] the effects of carbon emissions created in the

manufacturing process… [and] are verified by a third party and registered on the

Greenhouse Gas Registry of the Environmental Resources Trust, Inc. and on the Chicago

Climate Exchange.” 98

The company also offers and is phasing in other products “made

entirely with clean, renewable energy, and are manufactured carbon neutral” such as

branded file, map and print folders along with both corrugated and solid fiber board

boxes and document cases.99

Gaylord Bros., a company supplying materials for the library, museum and

archive industries, has embraced sustainability and is “committed to sustainable

development through environmental protection, social responsibility, and economic

progress. We are dedicated to meeting the needs of our society today and to minimizing

the impact of our actions on future generations and on the environment.” 100

In keeping

with this the company has created an environmental policy where:

96

Conservation By Design Limited, “New Recycled Green Archival Storage Box,” http://ebookbrowse.com

/press-release-cxd006-lydamore-boxes-pdf-d102381265 (accessed December 17, 2011). 97

Conservation Resources International, LLC, “Environmentally Friendly Green Document Cases,” http://

www.conservationresources.com/Main/S%20CATALOG/We_Go_Green.htm (accessed January 28, 2012). 98

Conservation Resources International, LLC, “Environmentally Friendly Green Document Cases.” 99

Conservation Resources International, LLC, “Environmentally Friendly Green Document Cases.” 100

Gaylord Bros., “Gaylord Environmental Policy,”

http://www.gaylord.com/page_manager_st_leftnav_no_ ewe.asp?page_ID=going_green&LeftNav_ID=900

(accessed November 17, 2012).

37

In the design, development, manufacture, and delivery of our products, it is our

policy to:

Reduce waste, re-use materials, and recycle whenever possible in both our

office and manufacturing operations.

Conserve energy through the use of efficient business processes.

Promote awareness of sustainable products and practices in the library and

museum communities by working with partner organizations that share our

green values.

Encourage our employees to be responsible, green citizens.

Pro-actively collaborate with environmental leaders and our community at

large to develop new and innovative environmental initiatives. 101

The company has implemented their policy through the creation of an “Everyday

Green Guide” for customers wanting to know more about sustainability and they have a

dedicated page listing sustainable products. As well, they have “been awarded

the Onondaga County Industrial Achievement Award for nine years in a row due to our

wastewater compliance.”102

Continuously reusing materials, conceptually known as “cradle-to-cradle”, rather

than using a material and then disposing of it in part or in whole, known as “cradle-to-

grave”, is also a sustainable practice. Written by Michael Braungart and William

McDonough, the influential book Cradle to Cradle explores the downfalls of the

traditional reduce, reuse, recycle model and advocates for products that degrade to

nourish the earth or are continually circulated. Although reusing the entirety of no-longer

needed materials is the ideal, reusing or recycling them in part is commendable.

“Materials containing recycled content expands markets for recycled materials, slow the

consumption of raw materials and reduce the amount of waste disposed of in landfills.”103

Put into practice, collections care professionals can embody this thinking with actions

such as repurposing shelving from other departments and prototyping mounts in waste or

101

Gaylord Bros., “Gaylord Environmental Policy.” 102

Gaylord Bros., “Gaylord Environmental Policy.” 103


http://www.gaylord.com/page_manager_st_leftnav_no_ewe.asp?page_ID=wastewateraward&LeftNav_ID=901

38

non-museum-quality materials. Furthermore mounts can be made that serve several

purposes, such as use in storage, exhibition and/or transportation and efforts can be made

to make long-term instead of short-term mounts. In some ways collections care

professionals already embody cradle-to-cradle thinking by using materials such as muslin

or cotton sheeting, which can be washed and reused, in textile and dress storage.104

An example of a supplier embodying this ethos is Dorfman Museum Figures, Inc.,

manufacturer of exhibition and storage mounts and mannequins. Fine particles of

Ethafoam® are generated in their product manufacturing and the company has an

arrangement where they ship the clean waste particles to “a catalog company that

specializes in conservation products for museums” where they use it to stuff pillows that

they sell through their catalogue.105

Dorfman Museum Figures, Inc. also “[uses] larger

pieces of scrap ETHAFOAM as loose packing material for shipping our products” 106

and

has in the past shipped scrap Ethafoam® to a customer who shredded it and used it as

snow in an exhibition.107

Robert Dorfman, president of Dorfman Museum Figures, Inc.,

stated quite clearly the importance of sustainable practices to his company – “We do not

sell our waste cuttings. My interest is in not putting our ETHAFOAM waste in a landfill,

so we give our waste ETHAFOAM away to people willing to pay the shipping.”108

Once materials have reached the end of their usefulness it is up to collections care

professionals to dispose of them in a sustainable manner “because the [collections care

professional], as a waste stream generator, bears the responsibility for ensuring that their

104

Sue Maltby, e-mailed message to author, October 2, 2012. 105

Robert Dorfman, e-mailed message to author, June 1, 2012. 106



Robert Dorfman, e-mailed message to author, June 1, 2012.

39

waste is dealt with in a safe and environmentally sound manner.”109

The majority of

storage materials can be recycled in some way. Cellulose products such as papers and

boards can usually be recycled with similar materials. Coroplast®, being a common

polypropylene copolymer coded 5 by the Society of the Plastics Industry, is recyclable in

the same processing stream as plastic milk cartons and detergent bottles.110

Coroplast®

scraps can simply be cleaned of any non-polypropylene components and placed in the

recycling bin, or otherwise taken to a local recycling center.111

Sealed Air’s polyethylene

foams, including the commonly used Ethafoam® 220, “are classified as #4 low-density

PE (LDPE) material and can be recycled in LDPE recycling systems, including [Sealed

Air’s] Closed Loop Recycling program.”112

This program, described in more detail at

recyclepefoam.com, has recycling plants in or near many major cities across the U.S.113

Recycling small amounts of foam might not be sustainable since the carbon footprint of

shipping could cancel out the positive aspects of recycling, but working with nearby

museums to jointly ship larger amounts might be an alternative, as can using a

polyethylene compactor to make it easier to ship the foam to the recycling plant.

Although much of what happens to a material before it is in the customers’ hands

is beyond their control, letting a supplier know that sustainability is important can have a

hugely positive effect on understanding the customer’s needs. This can be done by simply

109

Michael White, Judith J. Bischoff, Chris Stavroudis, and Lisa Goldberg, “From Cradle to Grave: Waste

Management for Conservators,” American Institute for Conservation’s Health and Safety Committee,

http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewPage&PageID=817&d:%5CCFusion

MX7%5Cverity%5CData%5Cdummy.txt (Accessed 9/30/2012). Note the quote originally said

“conservator” instead of collections care professional. 110

Coroplast, “Environmental Aspects of Coroplast®,”

http://www.coroplast.com/technicalinfo/environmental.htm (accessed September 30, 2012). 111

Coroplast, “Frequently Asked Questions,” http://www.coroplast.com/technicalinfo/faq.htm (accessed

September 30, 2012). 112

Sealed Air, “Infinite Usage, Infinite Uses.” 113

Sealed Air, “Sealed Air® Polyethylene Foam Recycling Program,”

http://www.sealedairprotects.com/na/en/sustainability/recycle_pefoam.aspx (accessed July 15, 2012).

40

asking that purchases be shipped with water-soluble peanuts or recycled filler, asking

whether the company has taken steps to increase their sustainability, or whether they

carry sustainable products. Since companies often have online catalogues, a customer no

longer needs to have a hardcopy catalogue which minimizes the materials used and

disposed of. Purchasing from companies that have made an effort towards sustainability

is an affirming action and it is important to let them know so.114

Companies are interested

in satisfying their customers. When asked whether there are any plans on expanding their

product offerings or manufacturing practices to be more sustainable Robert Dorfman,

president of Dorfman Museum Figures, Inc., answered, “We are always looking to see

what our clients need.”115

114

Having worked at a supplier of museum-quality materials, it is the author’s experience that inquiries

such as this really do have an impact, and due to the small staff of most suppliers, people who are in

positions of authority will likely hear your comment, inquiry or concern. 115


41

Chapter 7

Documentation

Maintaining proper documentation of a collection is an important part of the care

of all collections. Knowing the storage location, history and appearance of each artifact is

a preventive conservation practice that minimizes handling and exposure to light and

helps identify areas of concern, but as a sustainable practice it also prolongs the life of

mounts and boxes, reducing waste created in their replacement, and in cases where the

storage and office space are separate, prolongs the life of light bulbs, reduces the

electricity used to power them, and eases the load on HVAC systems having to adjust for

the presence of staff.

Inventories, accession records, object and condition reports can all be created and

edited electronically, as many collections care professionals are already doing, some even

utilizing a hand-held tablet for quick, transportable documentation which also streamlines

work flows and increases efficiency.116

All printing can be done on recycled paper,

double sided, and any waste created can be recycled. The MFA, Boston “recently

upgraded all printers in the building to use energy efficient equipment that is able to print

double-sided.”117

Even archival copies of records can be made in part or in whole of

recycled materials and maintain the appropriate qualities for long-term storage. Terri

Hudgins of the Cape Fear Museum notes that “sustainability is something we are

conscious of. We are trying to get away from doing lots of printing, and we are in the

116

Betsy Nelson, e-mail to RC-AAM mailing list, September 14, 2012. 117

Elizabeth Byrne, e-mailed message to author, September 18, 2012.

42

process of digitizing our collection, with images available for more than half of our

objects.”118

The Cape Fear Museum has a collection of more than 50,000 objects, but

digitizing a collection of any size will have comparable sustainable aspects of increasing

the sustainability and care of collections. The decisions we make can have a positive or

negative affect and actions seemingly as small as recycling paper have a cumulative

impact beyond the institutional walls.119

118


Although not precisely a documentation practice, the NMNH sustainably created their strategic plan

entitled “Knowledge for a Sustainable Future | Strategic Plan 2010–2015” by making it widely available

online as well as using recycled Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper.

43

Chapter 8

Exhibition and Storage Facility Design or Renovation

Collections care professionals are often called upon for their involvement in

actions that may be executed by others, such as the design or renovation of a facility or

building. In these instances drafting a plan aimed at the highest standard of collections

care, which also includes sustainability, of utmost importance. “Anyone in the

preservation business has a huge opportunity to use sustainable design to educate

audiences about the responsibilities of caring for collections in perpetuity.”120

The NMNH included sustainable renovation in their 2010-2015 strategic plan by

mentioning a desire to “improve technology and facilities operations to meet sustainable

criteria, provide a safe environment for our staff, volunteers and visitors, and to support

the Museum’s mission … [accomplished through] priority facility renovations and

[ensuring] they are LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design]-

certified.”121

In the same document the NMNH listed as one of their key milestones for

the 2010-2015 years “[to] create state-of-the-art facilities that meet sustainability

standards and that support our collections, research, exhibitions, and education

activities.”122

Far beyond the scope of traditional collections care responsibilities is the

construction of the physical building the collections are housed in, but sustainability is

increasingly being included in the design, construction and renovation of cultural heritage

120

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 43. 121

NMNH and Samper, Knowledge for a Sustainable Future, 26. 122

NMNH and Samper, Knowledge for a Sustainable Future, 32.

44

institutions. The U.S Green Building Council’s LEED Program is a rating system often

used to gain accreditation for a building’s sustainable operation and construction. The

program grants credits based on the following main areas of sustainable performance:

Sustainable sites credits encourage strategies that minimize the impact on

ecosystems and water resources.

Water efficiency credits promote smarter use of water, inside and out, to reduce

potable water consumption.

Energy & atmosphere credits promote better building energy performance

through innovative strategies.

Materials & resources credits encourage using sustainable building materials

and reducing waste.

Indoor environmental quality credits promote better indoor air quality and

access to daylight and views.123

Although this system is not without its downfalls – as the accreditation process is

often prohibitively cost and time consuming – it is a useful set of guidelines for any

institution to improve their sustainability with or without the goal of accreditation. 124

The BCM was able to get LEED accreditation while undertaking their extensive

renovations from 2002 to 2008 with the support of an Institute of Museum and Library

Services grant. BCM, the first LEED certified museum in New York City, uses

sustainable materials throughout its building, stabilizes the interior temperature using

geothermal heating and cooling, offsets energy use through photovoltaic panels collecting

solar energy and monitors and adjusts their HVAC system using energy-saving sensors

that monitor the carbon dioxide, occupancy and daylight. Furthermore the BCM has

included educating visitors about their sustainability in exhibition didactics and wall

123

U.S. Green Buildings Council, “LEED Green Building Rating Systems,”

http://new.usgbc.org/leed/rating-systems (accessed January 11, 2012). 124

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 40.

45

graphics placed throughout the building, in tour groups and through a Green Threads

initiative and accompanying pamphlet.125

Renovations can be both sustainable and a good collections care practice. In

fixing the building envelope, the temperature indoors can be more easily controlled,

leading to less drastic fluctuations in temperature, reduced energy use and fewer pests

and outdoor pollutants entering the building. Elizabeth Byrne of the MFA, Boston has

said, “… when new construction occurs, the opportunity is taken to improve windows,

doors, and insulation for energy conservation.” 126

Within exhibition design, the choice of materials for walls, platforms, paints,

frames and mounts can have a sustainable impact. Christine Guintini, conservator of the

Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at The Metropolitan

Museum of Art has consciously tried to reuse exhibition materials through the use of

slant boards and pinning hung textiles into fabric covered Ethafoam® bars, allowing for

easy unpinning and reuse.127

Similarly the MOPA and the MFA, Boston, along with

many other institutions, reuse temporary walls, mounts, crates, exhibition cases and

furniture whenever possible.128

Creating microclimates in storage cases rather than trying to maintain proper

environmental controls in a large room may also lower electricity bills.129

When

exploring possible materials for platforms, walls and flooring “choosing durable

materials will reduce replacement costs and demand on the environment. Choosing

125

Brooklyn Children’s Museum, “The Green Museum.” 126


Christine Guintini, discussion with author, New York City, NY, November 8th

, 2011. 128

Tom Callas, e-mailed message to author, October 10, 2012; Elizabeth Byrne, e-mailed message to

author, September 18, 2012. 129


46

sustainable materials, like fast-growing bamboo flooring and plywood, capitalizes on

renewable resources, not those that take many years, or even centuries, to replace.”130

The MFIT currently uses a reusable neutral colored platform in their Fashion and Textiles

History Gallery. The platform, which has a perforated metal surface over a standard

platform, minimizes the appearance of old holes.

The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the Museum of

Science and Industry in Chicago have together created a fully digital exhibition about

sustainability called Green Revolution. This exhibition “doesn't ‘travel’ on trucks.

Instead, it's transmitted online—from a secured website to your computer. There are no

crates needed.” 131

Host institutions are provided with digital files of exhibition graphics

along with a basic blueprint that they then use to tailor their space. Not only is the subject

matter about sustainability, “[focusing] on several major themes: waste, energy, green

pioneers, gardening and composting, green construction, and our carbon footprint,” but

also can be built using sustainable materials and, as an exhibition, it has a low carbon

footprint.132

Sustainable storage design can also include shelving, racks, and cabinets. Rather

than disposing of old storage furniture when upgrading ask local institutions if they

would want them. This happened in October 2012 when the American Textile History

Museum (ATHM) in Lowell Massachusetts lost storage space during a move. Rather than

dispose of the exhibition supplies, mannequin stands and folding tables, Stephanie Hebert

of the ATHM listed all the exhibition supplies and furniture they would be giving away

130

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 41. 131

Smithsonian Institution Travelling Exhibition Services, “Green Revolution,”

http://www.sites.si.edu/greenRevolution/ (accessed January 11, 2012). 132

Smithsonian Institution Travelling Exhibition Services, “Green Revolution.”

47

or selling at a modest price on the professional Registrar’s Committee of the American

Alliance of Museums (RC-AAM) list serve.133

As collections continue to grow, the need for more storage space is a clear issue.

With sustainability in mind, tearing down buildings to build new ones is a significant use

of resources; retrofitting unused rooms as storage or installing compact storage may be

both cost-efficient and more practical. In the fall of 2012 Monica Katz, conservator at the

Hispanic Society of America, was tasked with returning large artifacts coming back from

a long-term loan into an already overcrowded storage space. With limited resources

existing shelving was rearranged and new wire shelving on casters were purchased that

could be stored in front of shelves but rolled out of the way when needed.134

For those

collections that need offsite storage, the offsite building can have sustainable qualities not

possible in the onsite storage facility. One institution interviewed used an offsite storage

company that has a LEED silver rating on their building.135

Temporary storage, such as transportation crating, can be a significant use of

materials that are often disposed of after the fact. A simple way of including

sustainability into this is by creating a reusable or easily modifiable storage system or a

system suitable for both transportation and storage. The Smithsonian Institution National

Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) incorporated sustainability into their five-year

move from New York City to Suitland, Maryland by reusing the transportation crates.

The entire collection was moved using two truckloads of crates – while one was

transported and unloaded in Suitland, the second was being packed in New York.

133

Stephanie Hebert, e-mail to RC-AAM mailing list, October 4, 2012. 134

This is the author’s observations as a graduate intern at the Hispanic Society of America. 135

Interview with collections care professional, November 19, 2012. This interviewee wished to remain

anonymous.

48

Returning trucks were filled with empty crates as it was already returning to pick up the

following load. Not only was this a sustainable practice, but also a good conservation

practice since it “resulted in tight control over the conditions and quality of storage of the

materials used in contact with the collection.”136

Collections care professionals, as a part of a larger institution, have the

opportunity to encourage and utilize sustainability in the presentation and storage of their

artifacts. Although it may be easy to fall back on the standard, easily accessible solutions

to problems such as changing shelving, building platforms or moving collections, it does

not align with the overall ideal museum culture of innovation, education and

preservation. “In the design of a museum today, if somebody designs a building that was

sick or destroyed the planet, what is that telling the people coming to the building? It’s

telling them that they’re not important and that the planet’s not important. It’s telling

them that only one thing is important, which is our content, this didactic. But the fact is

the museum is a place of didactic communication.”137

136

Kaplan, “Integrating Preventive Conservation,” 226. 137

American Association of Museums, "Green Machine," 54-61.

49

Chapter 9

Encouraging Sustainability within Collections Care

In many ways incorporating sustainability into collections care is an uphill battle

because even if the desire to do so is present, collections departments are often

underfunded, understaffed and overworked. Luckily this is beginning to change. There

are several grant programs currently being offered to encourage sustainability within

collections care. The National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) Sustaining

Cultural Heritage Collections grants is offered to U.S. nonprofit heritage and educational

institutions to implement preservation projects “designed to be as cost effective, energy

efficient, and environmentally sensitive as possible.” 138

Collections-holding institutions

in particular “should aim to mitigate the greatest risks to collections rather than to meet

prescriptive targets” 139

which is in line with holistic collections care by eliminating

prescribed ideals. Projects implementing sustainable preventive conservation practices

“are especially encouraged.” 140

These grants, which range from $40,000 for planning to

$350,000 for implementation, encourage viewing sustainability through every aspect of

collections care, including measuring energy consumption, conducting thermal imaging

of the building, upgrading HVAC systems, rehousing collections or improving

emergency planning, amongst many other listed possibilities.141

138

National Endowment for the Humanities, “Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections,” http://www.neh.gov

/grants/preservation/sustaining-cultural-heritage-collections (accessed September 12, 2012). 139

National Endowment for the Humanities, “Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections.” 140

National Endowment for the Humanities, “Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections.” 141

National Endowment for the Humanities, “Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections.”

50

One of the recipients of an NEH grant is the IPI, which was awarded two grants

by the NEH Education and Training arm of the organization. These grants were designed

to meet the ongoing need for information about implementing sustainable practices,

specifically towards issues about energy-efficient environmental monitoring and resulted

in a publication entitled Sustainable Preservation Practices for Managing Storage

Environments along with webinars viewable online and workshops held at locations

across the U.S free of charge. Response to the initial grant’s outcomes was so profound

that the second grant was awarded and more comprehensive materials were released. The

IPI, already a leader in materials testing and environmental monitoring, is becoming a

trailblazer in sustainable preservation practices as well, and has added a Preservation

Environmental Specialist to their staff. The job posting requested candidates have

“experience in the field of preservation and a strong interest in preventive conservation

[…] and sustainable energy practices.”142

Relevant, scholarly, and innovative information on sustainable conservation and

collections care – once difficult to find – is now a burgeoning field. The Northeastern

States Conservation Center offers an online course called “The Green Museum:

Introduction to Environmental Sustainability in Museums” taught by Sarah Brophy,

author of The Green Museum.143

The Collections Trust, an English organization working

with collections-holding institutions to improve their collections care, actively works

with English institutions to improve their energy efficiency, and chief executive Nick

142

Image Permanence Institute, “IPI is Seeking a Preservation Environment Specialist,” Rochester Institute

of Technology https://imagepermanenceinstitute.org/ (accessed April 04, 2012). 143

Northern States Conservation Center, “Online Museum Classes - MS265: The Green Museum:

Introduction to Environmental Sustainability in Museums,”

http://www.collectioncare.org/training/trol_classes_ms265.html (accessed February 24, 2012).

51

Poole, whose comments about what he calls the “Green Challenge” inspired this research,

often discusses sustainability in his blog posts and lectures.144

Much like other aspects of heritage preservation, professionals interested in

incorporating sustainability into their practice can learn from collective experiences

shared through professional organizations all the while making more and more

information readily available through blogs, webinars and scholarly writing published

online. AIC has fostered this by creating the CSCP, which began in 2008 as the Green

Task Force and held its first formal luncheon and presentation at the 2012 annual

conference. This luncheon included keynote speakers from allied fields and a series of

conservation and collections care professionals speaking about their research. The

speakers included MCI conservator Jia-sun Tang speaking about sustainably retrofitting

exhibition cases to meet conservation standards; Patricia Silence of Colonial

Williamsburg Foundation speaking about environmental monitoring, energy saving and

her particular institution’s complex series of buildings and HVAC systems; Eliza Gilligan

of the University of Virginia discussing her experience with electrodeionization as a

sustainable and practical option for water treatment, along with a presentation by the

author regarding an early phase of this research. The CSCP luncheon sold out and

garnered so much positive feedback and interest that it will continue at the 2013 annual

conference, which has a theme of “The Contemporary in Conservation”, including

“current issues in conservation and preservation, such as digitization, environmental

144

Nigel Blades, “Energy Efficiency in Historic Buildings - the National Trust Approach,” slide

presentation, http://www.collectionslink.org.uk/discover/environmental-control/854-energy-efficiency-in-

historic-buildings-the-national-trust-approach (accessed January 10, 2012).

52

sustainability.”145

The CSCP has continued its dissemination of information with a

dedicated section on the organization’s wikipage and a Sustainability Resources section

under the organization’s online Resource Center, both of which are available to non-

members. The broader conservation and heritage communities have published much

innovative research involving sustainability which does not directly relate to collections

care, but are included in the bibliography under the heading “Additional Sources”.

Although incorporating sustainable practices into collections care can be difficult,

the greater cultural heritage profession is moving towards encouraging, if not requiring

sustainability to be considered. The AMNH created its five guiding Sustainability

Principles, which were created after a cross-departmental examination of its operations

focusing on sustainability. These five principles affect all aspects of the museum and are:

Manage the Museum's operations and facilities in a manner that reduces the

Museum's negative impact on the environment.

Encourage environmentally responsible practices in projects that call for the

design, renovation, and/or restoration of the Museum's facilities.

Develop opportunities for the Museum to inform and encourage its staff and visitors

about sustainable practices and the Museum's efforts to lessen its own impact.

As appropriate, collaborate with external entities such as governments,

businesses, citizens groups, schools, and peer institutions to advance awareness of

environmental issues and the impact of personal and industrial behavior.

Continue to monitor the sustainability of the Museum's operations: by assessing

the impact of existing and newly initiated practices; by establishing and

evaluating sustainability goals; and by looking for new opportunities to improve

the Museum's "green" practices.146

Similarly the Smithsonian Institution created the institution-wide Green Task Force

to increase sustainability in their nineteen museums and galleries, the National Zoological

Park and nine research facilities. Both of these examples are institution specific, but as

145

American Association for Conservation, “Annual Meeting,” http://www.conservation-

us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=710 (accessed October 21, 2012). 146

AMNH Sustainability Practices Committee, “Sustainability Principles.”

53

leaders in heritage preservation, the Smithsonian Institutions and the AMNH can lead by

example.

Sustainability, much like collections care, is important to cultural heritage.

Although it was once brushed aside, sustainability is now incorporated into preserving it.

Information about sustainability is disseminated through traditional avenues such as

scholarly articles, conferences and, more importantly, through discussions with other

professionals. “It’s always good to know what others are doing. If you feel you are the

only one doing something, it’s hard to plug and make a difference. Now we can share

information on finding sources of funding, on how to go about organizing a certain

project.”147

Future conferences discussing sustainability include the National Museums of

Berlin’s 2013 conference, entitled “Heritage Science and Sustainable Development for

the Preservation of Art and Cultural Assets – On the Way to the Green Museum”; the

2013 North American Textile Conservation Conference, entitled “Conserving Modernity:

the Articulation of Innovation,” will discuss among other topics “the impact of the

environment on these [modern] materials and/or the artifacts created from them”; and, as

previously mentioned, the AIC’s 2013 conference, entitled “The Contemporary in

Conservation.”148

147

Joelle Seligson, “Hitting the Green Running,” Museum – American Association of Museums, July/August

2009, 88, no. 4: 35-37. 148

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, “Heritage Science and Sustainable Development for the Preservation of

Art and Cultural Assets – On the Way to the Green Museum,” (accessed February 5, 2013); North

American Textile Conservation Conference, “Announcements – Call for Papers and Posters,”

http://www.natcconference.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=106&Itemid=226&lang

=en (accessed December 4, 2012); American Association for Conservation, “Annual Meeting.”

54

PART II

Finding Sustainable Museum-Quality Materials

55

Chapter 10

Obstacles Preventing Sustainable Materials from Being Used

“Care and preservation of collections is energy and resource intensive

and inextricably connected to the health of the global environment.”149

Environmental consciousness in collections care can come in many forms. Some

practices require only a slight change while others require more time, effort or money to

enact. Switching from a familiar material to a new one requires only a slight change in

practice, but there are many factors preventing sustainable alternatives to museum-quality

materials from being used. The purpose of Part II is to explore how materials are

perceived and to overcome obstacles preventing change towards sustainability. There are

many ways to approach this topic; the following research is organized around three of the

most significant factors preventing sustainable museum-quality materials from being

used. They are:

1. How sustainable materials are perceived to be does not align with what museum-

quality materials are believed to be.

2. Suppliers of museum-quality materials do not yet offer sustainable alternatives.

3. Most sustainable materials have not been “certified” as being museum-quality.

The following research addresses these three factors, followed by a thorough

documentation of materials testing and aims to be a well-documented narrative that

others can use as a reference when doing similar research. The information below comes

from a literature survey, interviews with museum professionals and suppliers of museum-

149


56

quality materials, as well as from knowledge accrued having worked for a supplier of

materials for museums, libraries and archives.

How sustainable materials are perceived to be

does not align with what museum-quality materials are believed to be.

This statement is based on the idea that traditional museum-quality materials are

in their purest, least contaminated state, which often means that they are made from new

resources. But what is a museum-quality material? The language used to describe this

kind of material is not definitive, but rather descriptive, and before exploring sustainable

museum-quality materials the language used needs to be clarified. Addressing the

following three questions can do this: what is a museum-quality material? What is a

sustainable material? What can a sustainable museum-quality material be?

What is a museum-quality material?

The term museum-quality, much like the term archival-quality is inherently

flawed as it “is a generic term that suggests long-term stability but there is no industry

standard definition.”150

These terms are used as marketing tools but taken literally the

term museum-quality simply implies that that it can be used within a museum which,

according to the American Alliance of Museums, is any institution that “is making a

‘unique contribution to the public by collecting, preserving, and interpreting the things of

150

Howard Wellman, “Storage Environments: Packing & Labeling Materials,” slide 8 from slide

presentation, http://www.sha.org/documents/research/packing.pdf (accessed September 16, 2011).

57

this world.’ ” 151

This includes everything from art history museums to zoos to science

centers. As such the term museum-quality does not reflect the breadth of what a museum

can be. The term archival-quality, although more specific, is also problematic as some

archives are meant to last only short periods of time and therefore use materials without

long-term stability, which is contrary to what most believe to be museum-quality.

Similarly describing a material as conservation-quality is not suitable as the materials

used by conservators are as varied as the artifacts conserved. For example, a corrugated

board used to build a long-term storage box is very different from a surfactant used to

wash a soiled rug. Further confusing the situation is that many materials used by

conservators are also used by other professionals and are marketed using different terms,

such as the surfactant Orvus®, which is primarily used to wash livestock. These three

terms, along with their -grade counterparts, are vague and misleading when undefined.

A more appropriate way to describe the materials used in museums is to describe

them qualitatively. Terms such as ‘acid-free’, ‘lignin-free’, ‘pH neutral’, ‘buffered’ or

‘unbuffered’, along with more specific descriptors, such as ‘buffered to a pH of 7’ or

‘acid-free faces and core’, denote unique qualities and are more clear. But even these

terms do not indicate universal suitability. For example, pH neutrality is often suitable in

museums, but some materials are best kept in an environment with a higher or lower pH,

in which case neutrality is actually undesirable. The Library of Congress has published a

series of specifications for supplies and materials used in collections care which describes

specific qualities for various materials such as paper, card, and board stocks along with

polyester sleeves and metal cans used to house motion picture reels. These specifications,

151

American Alliance of Museums, “What is a Museum” http://www.aam-

us.org/aboutmuseums/whatis.cfm (accessed October 11, 2011).

58

although hugely valuable in the under-documented field of collections care materials,

were created in the 1990s and last revised in 2009 and do not reflect recent technological

and cultural changes. These specifications reflect a past perception towards recycled

content and at present every specification for a cellulosic material (papers, cards, boards)

mention how they “must not contain any post consumer [sic] waste recycled pulp” while

those for pressure sensitive tapes often mention how “the polyester must be [a]

non‐recycled film.”152

However, much like all aspects of conservation and collections

care, “the specifications are subject to change” and reflect the changing views towards

sustainable materials.153

Heritage preservation professionals require a broad range of materials to suit

various needs and gather materials from various industries while accumulating supplies

with a broad range of qualities. Most of the materials used in museums and in

conservation have the unifying quality that over the long term they are chemically stable

or inert, which means they will not contribute additional pollutants to the environment

and will not autodegrade. For the purposes of this research the term museum-quality

material signifies a material safe for use with collections objects due to its long-term

chemical stability.

152

Library of Congress Preservation Directorate, “Library of Congress Preservation Directorate -

Specification Number 600‐611 – 11 - Specifications for Singlewall E‐Flute Corrugated Board - For

Protective Enclosures,” http://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/specifications/specs/600-611_11.pdf

(accessed January 4, 2013); Library of Congress Preservation Directorate, “Library of Congress

Preservation Directorate - Specification Number 800‐801 – 09 - Specifications for Pressure Sensitive

Adhesive Security Strips - For Application in the Spine Hollow of Bound Books,”

http://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/specifications/specs/600-611_11.pdf (accessed January 4, 2013). 153

Library of Congress Preservation Directorate, “Preservation Supply Specifications,”

http://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/specifications/index.html (accessed February 4, 2013).

59

What is a sustainable material?

Ideas about sustainability are continuously evolving as our acceptance increases

and knowledge broadens. Sustainability can come from a reduction in energy, water,

chemicals or material use as well as the use of sustainable alternatives to those. From the

material’s original source to its disposal, the whole life cycle of anything “where they

came from; what materials were used and how they were extracted, adapted, and

combined; how the materials affect the health of your workers and the environment; how

the product gets packaged and shipped; and how you will use and reuse or dispose of it”

can have a sustainable aspect and, as such, the concept of a sustainable material is

perhaps even more undefined than the concept of a museum-quality material.154

As stated in the beginning discussion on terminology, the terms sustainable,

green, eco-friendly/conscious/benign and environmentally-friendly/conscious/benign, are

vague terms. In the context of this research the term sustainable refers to the general

sense of care and concern for the environment. However, much like museum-quality

material, sustainable material is often used descriptively rather than definitively. The

more concrete terms refer to its original material, processing or post-consumed qualities

such as materials made in part or in whole from recycled materials and described as

having some percent of pre- or post-consumer recycled content. Other materials may

have been made from an original source that is sustainable, such as quickly growing

bamboo or cotton grown without pesticides. A material can also be processed sustainably,

such as those made with reduced energy consumption or with chemicals that do not harm

the environment when disposed. Some materials may be sustainable in their post-

consumed life, such as those that degrade quickly or those that can be entirely recycled.

154


60

As with the term museum-quality, the term sustainable is debated among

professionals. For example bamboo, although quickly growing, requires more energy and

toxic chemicals than wood to be processed into paper or fabric, although when cut and

used instead of wood, it can be considered a sustainable alternative. Another example is

biodegradable materials, which often need to be exposed to air and light in order to

degrade, and as such will not quickly do so in a landfill under heaps of waste. Further

adding confusion are materials that have designations or stamps, such as the recycling

symbol, but some recycling plants can only handle certain kinds of materials. Note that

the recyclability of a material does not affect its sustainability since it is up to the

individual to recycle as much as possible, and also to ensure that their recycling gets

taken to the appropriate factories for processing. The point of this research is not to fully

define sustainability, but rather to explore the ideas surrounding it. These ideas are

evolving and thus it is important to remain informed and form one’s own opinions on the

topic. For the purposes of this research the term sustainable material signifies a material

that has some sustainable aspect in its production or processing.

What can a sustainable museum-quality material be?

In the mind of some collections care professionals, the two concepts of a

sustainable material and a museum-quality material are incompatible. “[Museum-quality]

materials are inherently stable (will not auto-degrade), of known compositions (recipes

and formulations are known and consistent), will not contribute to the decay of the

artifacts, and will remain stable for 100+ years.”155

Three of these four points directly

contradict what a sustainable material is often marketed as. Recycled-content materials

155

Howard Wellman, “Storage Environments,” slide 8.

61

can sometimes have varied original sources, especially considering mixed content paper

and plastic recycling programs, and some sustainable materials are meant to degrade and

do so in under a century, but these are not true in all cases.

Sustainable materials, much like their museum-quality counterparts, have their

production tailored to their unique circumstances. A museum-quality material must be

produced with careful consideration to all its components so as not to have any quality

that may make it interact negatively with the collection. Likewise the machines used to

manufacture cardboard from virgin pulp cannot process recycled cardboard.156

CXD has

dealt with this by controlling the source of their recycled materials and found a mill that

can accommodate and still produce a museum-quality product.157

Similarly Peterboro

Cardboards, Ltd has altered their manufacturing process once they discovered the product

they were producing was not easily recyclable.158

Collections care professionals often

believe “that it is hard to get recycled materials to be to the same archival standards as

virgin materials” and that “ ‘virgin’ means there are no unstable additives or recycled

materials that might introduce instabilities” which when put together implies virgin

sources are the only acceptable option.159

Conceptually it is true that materials should be

in their cleanest state, (e.g. unbleached and unsized muslin or boards without optical

brightening agents), but these qualities can also exist in sustainable materials. For plastics

specifically, “studies have shown that products manufactured with recycled plastic

materials have a lower carbon footprint than products made entirely from virgin

156

Maurus Biedermann, Jan-Erik Ingenhoff, Martino Barbanera, Davide Garbini and Koni Grob, “Using

Recycled Cardboard in Food Packaging Risks Contaminating Food with Mineral Oils,” abstract, Packaging

Technology and Science 24, no 5 (August/September 2011).

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/PressRelease/pressReleaseId-98297.html (accessed March 15, 2012). 157

Alison Bitner, interview by Christian Hernandez, Albuquerque, NM, May 10, 2012.. 158



62

materials” and improving the quality of recycled plastics has significantly advanced,

although whether these plastics are safe for collections care remains to be proven.160

It is

important to remember that being sustainable and being museum-quality are not mutually

exclusive and the compound of these terms should do justice to both.

The following two tenants of the AIC’s Code of Ethics gives the framework for

what a sustainable museum-quality material can be:

I. The conservation professional shall strive to attain the highest possible

standards in all aspects of conservation.

VI. The conservation professional must strive to select methods and materials

that, to the best of current knowledge, do not adversely affect cultural property or

its future examination, scientific investigation, treatment, or function.161

Considering these tenants, along with the previously discussed definitions, a

sustainable museum-quality material must have two traits. First it must match or exceed

the museum-quality aspects of the material that would otherwise be used. Second it must

also have some sustainable aspect in its production or processing.162

This second trait is

intentionally left broad because a material that can in any way be considered sustainable

is better than a material that cannot be considered sustainable at all.

The initial statement regarding what conservators perceive to be a sustainable

material versus those that do not align with what they believe a museum-quality material

to be is a reflection of a past mindset. Previously the quality of a material was based on

its safety for the collection while its safety for the environment was not considered, but

160

Sealed Air Specialty Materials, Ethafoam®

HRC®

– The Search is Over (Grand Prairie, TX: Sealed Air,

[2009]). 161

American Institute for Conservation, “Codes of Ethics and Guidelines for Practice.” 162

As previously stated, in the context of this research, sustainability does not guarantee the post-consumer

life the material will take since it is up to the individual to use any material sustainably and ensure its

proper recycling.

63

sustainability should not be removed from the definition of quality – “how can something

be high-quality if it destroys the planet or makes people sick?”163

During this research many collections care professionals were interviewed and

asked whether they would ever consider using a sustainable museum-quality material in

collections care. Below is a sample of the responses:

“If these [museum-quality and sustainable materials] were comparable in price

and quality, I’m sure we [at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design and

Merchandising] would switch. However, for the next few years we have a very

limited budget, so we would not have the luxury of spending more on the

sustainable choices.”164

“If they were reasonably priced and proven to be safe for collections, I [as museum

registrar at the Cape Fear Museum] would be very willing to switch to them.”165

“Provided they are readily available and not extraordinarily expensive, I [as

registrar at the Museum of Photographic Arts] would be very willing.”166

“We have to use what is best for the art, so if a sustainable and non-sustainable

product would deliver the same quality, we may go to the sustainable, but it also

depends on cost.”167

“It would be great if there were items created from recycled materials that

maintained the same level of archival acid- and lignin-free integrity without off-

gassing or breaking down. […] If someone could find a way to do this at an

affordable price, we [at the Society for Cincinnati would] definitely be interested.”168

“The MFA, Boston would certainly strive to use sustainable museum-quality

materials, as long as they were archival and passed the [combined accelerated

aging and VOC] Oddy test.”169

“Provided it passed the tests necessary to determine its suitability, [as a collections

care professional most recently employed at the Charlotte Museum of History]

I would be happy to use recycled or more sustainably produced materials.”170

163

American Association of Museums, "Green Machine," 54-61. 164




Interview with collections care professional, November 19, 2012. This interviewee wished to remain

anonymous. 168

Whitney Robertson, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2012. 169

Elizabeth Byrne, e-mailed message to author, September 18, 2012. The Oddy Test is further explained

in –depth in “Chapter 11: Materials Testing.” 170

Anne Lane, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2012.

64

In these responses two points – those of quality and price – were mentioned time

and time again. Whereas the idea of quality is fluid, as discussed throughout Part II, the

idea that sustainable materials cost more is linked to other facets of collections care. In

general specialty materials often cost more, new materials require expensive testing and

they need to be purchased through unfamiliar suppliers, but if collections are worth the

expensive HVAC systems, custom storage boxes and highly trained staff, do they not

also warrant increased sustainability?171

In the future sustainable materials are likely to be

more common, which will reduce their cost as they become less of a specialty material.

The concerns about price are valid since collections are often underfunded but it does not

negate that the quality of a material is based on whether or not it is safe for the collection,

which includes both its impact on the environment and its long term stability. “Balancing

conservation (museum type) against conservation (environmental) will probably prove

difficult, but the sooner we start the less painful it will be.”172

Suppliers of museum-quality materials do not yet offer sustainable alternatives.

This statement is based on two observations that came to light while researching

this topic. When trying to find materials that fit the criteria of a sustainable museum-

quality material, the obvious first place to look was companies that supply museum-

quality materials. Most of these companies offered no sustainable materials suitable for

collections care, although most did offer sustainable options for craft supplies, printing

171

It is not the author’s intention to imply that sustainable materials are worth any price, but rather that

sustainable qualities add value that should be considered along with other qualities. 172

Anne Lane, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2012.

65

paper or short term storage, such as bankers boxes made from recycled cardboard. The

first observation was simply a lack of products marketed as both sustainable and

museum-quality. Of the materials tested, CXD’s Superior Millboard was the only one

marketed as safe for collections care. Of the materials considered but not tested, only

some recycled-content papers were specifically promoted as being “archival” or had

qualities, such as being acid-free, which are desirable for collections care.

The second observation came from having previously worked for a supplier of

museum-quality materials. Seeing the development of products from one catalogue to the

next, it was my observation that the greatest innovations in products occurred with

advances in electronics and equipment. Unlike storage materials, which largely remained

the same from one year to another, data loggers, encapsulation supplies and even scissors

were improved upon, possibly a reflection of the customer’s expectations for innovative

technology but not innovative materials.

Both these observations are the result of many factors but common between the

two is that collections are customers of the suppliers. It is safe to assume that customers

usually order from the product range offered to them by a supplier and conversely

suppliers usually carry products they know will sell to their customers. Products with

technological advances, such as smaller data loggers or easier to use mat cutters, will

assuredly sell and therefore suppliers will carry these new products because of the high

probability customers will want it. This is not so when it comes to sustainable storage

materials that are not widely accepted by collections care professionals and, therefore,

suppliers are unlikely to carry sustainable products because of the high-risk customers

will not want to purchase them. For companies such as Sealed Air or Coroplast, who

66

manufacture but do not sell their products directly to customers, creating new materials is

possible due to their large and varied customer base, of which collections care

professionals are a small fraction of it, and internal financial support for research and

development. For companies whose main customer base is the heritage preservation

sector, the risk is higher and budget for research and development likely smaller. For

these suppliers, stocking new products often requires purchasing a large amount to keep

in stock, hoping their customers want to buy it.173

All of these discrepancies between

selling a traditional versus a sustainable museum-quality material are reasons why

suppliers of museum-quality materials do not yet offer sustainable alternatives.

Further adding confusion is the fact that most museum-quality materials are not

made specifically for use in museums. Materials such as Mylar, Tyvek® and Ethafoam

®

are made primarily for other industries and suppliers of materials to museums are simply

aware that their customers will purchase them. Similarly collections care professionals

can purchase materials like Coroplast® Archival from any supplier because of the

confidence that it is consistent regardless of who is selling it. That same confidence is not

available for sustainable materials because there is no widely accepted brand name. There

are many companies selling sustainable materials so the problem is not in a lack of

possible sustainable museum-quality materials, but that none of these materials have been

certified as being museum-quality and are therefore less trusted by customers.

173

Jake Salik, interview with author, May 30, 2012. This information is further corroborated from author’s

experience having worked for a supplier of materials for museums, libraries and archives.

67

Most sustainable materials have not been “certified” as being museum-quality.

The above statement is largely formed from interviews with conservation

professionals and observations by myself as an emerging conservation professional.

Peterboro president Alan Yaffe shares this observation and has said of his company’s

increased sustainability, “…the [customer’s] reaction has been mixed. Some people are

very much interested in what we are doing to improve sustainability while others do not

comment. I have found that many conservators are reluctant to change or try something

new. I will keep trying to improve sustainability because of my own personal feelings on

the subject.”174

Historically this reluctance was justified since many materials were

considered safe at the time but later on proved to have poor aging qualities such as tapes

that became brittle, adhesives that failed or tissue paper that became acidic. As a result a

short list of trusted materials informally exists and has been widely accepted for use in

collections care.

The use of new materials to replace those commonly accepted has often been a

difficult and slow transition. These materials must be certified in some way – their value

proven and quality vouched for. This can be done most scientifically through material

testing, but collections care professionals often consider widespread use of a material to

be certification in and of itself. When selecting a new material for use in storage it is

often recommended to “consult with colleagues on the track-record of materials in use

elsewhere.”175

Because of this it is difficult for a new material to be added to the shortlist

of recommended materials.

174



68

One of the first obstacles a new museum-quality material must overcome is to

prove its long-term chemical stability via material testing. The time, effort and resources

needed to conduct even the most basic of these tests is a clear obstacle and deterrent for

both collections care professionals and suppliers. In addition, there is no test that is an

indisputable guarantee that the material is safe for use in collections care and therefore

the reluctance to test new materials is compounded by the fact that any test is not

definitive. Both customers and suppliers will need convincing that a sustainable material

is a suitable alternative to traditional materials.

Some professional organizations have standards that place materials into grade

levels, essentially providing certification, but few organizations are willing to publicly

support a material they cannot guarantee and furthermore most do not want to appear to

be favoring one company’s products over another. One of the few organizations that does

offer certification is the Fine Art Trade Guild in the United Kingdom that has standards

for mount boards, tapes and adhesives which place materials into one of five grades, the

top two being conservation-grade and museum-grade, the latter of which is higher.

Conversely the organization also lists the companies that are professional members,

which is an ethical dilemma in that companies will pay the organization to be listed on

their site, a form of advertising but also a form of inadvertent accreditation. The U.S.

counterpart to the Fine Art Trade Guild, the Fine Art Care and Treatments Standards,

collapsed in 2009 “and its directors placed its standards and materials in the Guild's safe

hands.”176

A different but comparable body is the Conservation and Art Materials

Encyclopedia Online (CAMEO), which “is an electronic database that compiles, defines,

176

Fine Art Trade Guild, “Standards, Training and Qualifications,”

http://www.fineart.co.uk/STQs/Standards_training_and_qualifications.aspx (accessed October 16, 2012).

69

and disseminates technical information on the distinct collection of terms, materials, and

techniques used in the fields of art conservation and historic preservation.”177

CAMEO,

although affiliated with the MFA, Boston, does not support any particular company,

simply listing any suppliers or manufacturers of the material, nor does it directly certify any

particular material, rather listing its qualities such as chemical compound, melting point,

trade names in various countries, along with technical data sheets, mentions in scholarly

articles, links to webpages on corporate websites and images of the material in use.

Certification for any particular material is ethically and technically difficult to do.

In most cases suppliers cannot vouch for their products, although some offer results from

an Oddy Test. Suppliers can foster a sense of trust with their customers by being

members of professional organizations, sponsoring professional events such as

workshops, buying booths at conferences and donating materials to institutions in need.

Examples of this include The Cunha/Swartzburg Award sponsored by Hollinger/Metal

Edge, the book and paper conservation workshops sponsored by CXD, or the heritage

preservation associations of which Carr McLean and other companies are members.178

Along with trust it is simply convenient for collections to buy materials from a single or

select few suppliers rather than deal with multiple purchase orders, shipping fees, and

delivery times.

This complex situation involving suppliers, customers, a lack of innovation and a

flawed certification system is corroborated in an interview with Dorfman Museum

177

Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia Online, “About CAMEO,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,

http://cameo.mfa.org/about/index.asp (accessed October 16, 2012). 178

Association for Library Collections & Technical Services, “George Cunha and Susan Swartzburg

Award,” http://www.ala.org/alcts/awards/profrecognition/lbicunhaswartz (accessed October 10, 2012);

Conservation By Design “Scholarships and Workshops,” http://www.conservation-by-

design.co.uk/home.aspx?pagename=scholarships (accessed October 10, 2012); Carr McLean, “About Us –

Associations,” http://carrmclean.com/StaticPage.aspx?ContentID=assoc (accessed October 10, 2012).

http://carrmclean.com/StaticPage.aspx?ContentID=assoc

70

Figures, Inc. president Robert Dorfman. When asked if his company would ever use

recycled content materials that passed an Oddy Test he replied,

[Our company uses] ETHAFOAM plank material to make our forms because it is

an accepted material by the museum community. I am not a professional

conservator or chemist, nor do I have one on my staff. I make no specific claims

about the suitability of ETHAFOAM for conservation issues that is based on my

own testing. I rely on the brand name of ETHAFOAM and Sealedair’s testing and

protection of their brand and the museum community’s belief and acceptance of the

brand. I would hesitate to use recycled content unless it was already universally

understood and accepted by the museum community.179

These factors, along with many others, are obstacles preventing sustainable

materials from being used in collections care. Neither customers nor suppliers are

pushing for more sustainability in storage materials since traditional materials are safe

and reliable. In the near future these obstacles will lessen as the availability and

awareness of sustainable materials increase.

179


71

Chapter 11

Materials Testing

The primary goal of Part II is to find a sustainable museum-quality material.

When selecting materials to test there were two factors that influenced what would be

selected. First, the materials needed to be a practical test group that would be useful to the

broadest range of collections care professionals. The focus on storage materials was

chosen as an appropriate test group because they are fewer and more established than the

materials used for more invasive conservation or for non-storage collections care

practices. For example, in finding a sewing thread for use in invasive conservation there

are many factors to consider (e.g. weight, fiber, color, breaking strength), and a test group

of sewing threads represents only a small percentage of possible conservation threads. In

finding a sustainable alternative to the materials used in storage, a small thoughtfully

selected test group would represent a larger percentage of the available options. For

example, there is only a small group of foams widely perceived to be museum-quality,

and testing one or more alternatives would be significantly more impactful.

The second consideration was the number materials that could be tested under the

unique circumstances of this research. Due to the nature of Oddy Testing (described in

more depth below), the number of materials was limited to how many groups of three test

tubes could fit in the oven available, the number finally being nine materials along with

the control. Time was also a factor since each round of testing required thirty consecutive

days and tests could not be conducted simultaneously. Although multiple tests were

72

possible one after the other, it was best to retest the first group a second time to

corroborate the results rather than test an entire new group of materials. Furthermore time

had to be allotted for a possible contaminated test indicated by a failed control.

The testing comprised of an Oddy Test, the most common way of judging a

material for its suitability for use in collections. An Oddy Test is an accelerated aging test

conducted to detect the presence of volatile compounds through off-gassing. The test,

created by Andrew Oddy in 1973, has undergone many changes since its inception. The

test is so varied that in most of the literature on Oddy testing, the author will note that

their method differs from Andrew Oddy’s and is not the only version. Examples of this

include the 2010 IIC article “A Variant Oddy Test Procedure for Evaluating Materials

Used in Storage and Display Cases” by Joseph A. Bamberger, Ellen G. Howe and the

1994 article “Testing Materials for Use in the Storage and Display of Antiquities—A

Revised Methodology” by George Wheeler or as L.R. Green and D. Thickett.

The basic procedure of an Oddy Test involves the materials to be tested placed

inside an enclosed test tube where it is encouraged to degrade through prolonged

exposure to high heat and humidity. In aging, the material may give off volatile

compounds, detected through corrosion on one of the three small coupons of metal also

housed in this environment. Variations on this include how long to administer the test

(anywhere from 14 to 48 days); at what temperature (anywhere from 40 to 60 degrees

Celsius); in what kind of container (such as a glass test tube with stopper or glass jar with

lid); and whether the three coupons are together in one container or each in their own

enclosed environment with a sample of the material. Other variations include: how the

coupons are held in the container, whether the water is free or in a separate smaller test

73

tube, the amount of water present, the size of the metal coupon and the presence of a pH

strip. More advanced accelerated aging tests can combine the presence of ultraviolet light

and changes in temperature.

In addition to the variety of ways an Oddy Test can be done, it is fundamentally a

subjective test. Although the presence of a volatile compound of any sort is undesirable

the results only indicate how the tested material would react to metal, an inorganic

compound, but not to any organic materials such as cotton, leather or wood. Another

problem is the subjectivity of reading the results – one person’s temporary pass may be

another person’s fail. In the conservation world, where erring on the side of caution is

recommended, any noticeable corrosion, oxidation or alteration of the coupon would be

deemed a failing result. A temporary pass should only be given for convenience and

urgency sakes, exclusively for a short period of time such as an exhibition or

transportation, and only if minimal alteration of the coupon was noticed. Another

downside of the test is that there are many uncontrollable factors regarding the tested

materials such as unstated changes in manufacturing or sourcing, or poor storage

conditions. Additionally, ideally each new shipment of materials would be tested to

ensure its quality. A final obstacle is the possibility of a false fail or corrupted control due

to testing circumstances or contaminated samples.

Even with all the pitfalls, an Oddy test has many benefits. It is a non-specific test

and will detect many types of corrosive and volatile compounds which are not welcome

in a collection regardless of what they are, and can be carried out within institutions with

limited resources.180

Since it is not feasible to do every test available to test all forms of

180

Lorna Green and David Thickett, Testing Materials for the Storage and Display of Artefacts: A Course

at the British Museum, 14 September 1994 (London: British Museum, 1994), 145.

74

damaging qualities a material may have, especially considering the varied sensitivities of

a multi-media collection, an Oddy test is an inexpensive and relatively quick test which

largely answers the fundamental question, “Is this material safe to use for long-term use

with collections objects?”

For material testing the author decided that the oven would be at 60°C for 28

days, as was used by Thickett and Green in their article “Testing Materials for the

Storage and Display of Artefacts” due to their incredibly thorough and expansive

research into the standardization and repeatability of Oddy testing. The tests were

conducted in March and May 2012 at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Graduate

Studies conservation labs. The testing procedure is described in order of operations

(Appendix 1: Blank Oddy Test Document) which was created to ensure repeatability.

75

Descriptions of Materials Tested

The nine materials tested compare three kinds of collections care materials181

:

Plastic foams: Ethafoam® 220 and possible sustainable alternatives Ethafoam

® HRC

(High Recycled Content), Ethafoam® MRC (Maximum Recycled Content) and

Stratocell® RC (Recycled Content).

Plastic board: Coroplast® Archival and possible sustainable alternative Corogreen™

Cellulose board: Talas’s Heritage Corrugated Board and Archivart®’s Multi-Use

Board and possible sustainable alternative CXD’s Superior Archival Millboard.

Ethafoam®

220182

The term Ethafoam® is often used as if it was the name of a single material, when

in fact Ethafoam® is the name of a family of polyethylene foams with similar technical

qualities, available in different colors, densities and with different additives such as those

making it anti-static or fireproof. The particular Ethafoam® often used in collections care

is Ethafoam®

220, which is a white foam commonly used for mount-making and storage.

Its main desirable qualities are its cushion, resilience, and the fact that it is available in a

variety of densities and pre-cut thicknesses. It is also desirable because it is easily cut

with a knife or hot-knife and shaped to any contour, allowing for customization.

According to a MasterPak press release, Ethafoam® is “archival quality… inert

and chemically stable, [and] meets all preservation standards.”183

All foams produced by

181

For photos of the tested materials see “Appendix 2: Scanned Images of Materials Tested.” 182

Product ID: N/A. Manufactured by Sealed Air Corporation. Sample available in lab purchased in 2011. 183

Masterpak®, “Ethafoam

® and CelluCushion

®,” http://www.masterpak-usa.com/cat_203_ethafoam.htm

(accessed April 14, 2012).

76

Sealed Air are “CFC [chlorofluorocarbon] and HCFC [hydrochlorofluorocarbon]-free as

well as recyclable.”184

CFC and HCFC compounds have been known to have negative

effects on the ozone layers.

Ethafoam® 220 has three published Oddy tests by Master-Pak, University

Products, and Sealed Air. In 2006 packaging material supplier Master-Pak released a

report stating Ethafoam® 220 is “safe for use in packing and the display of art objects.

There were no adverse reactions with the copper or lead coupons; no oxidation or change

due to the test material was found.”185

University Products also tested various kinds of

Ethafoam® with passing results and concluding “that on the basis of the test carried out

that the product is safe for direct contact with art objects for use in display, packaging,

transportation and storage.”186

Similarly Sealed Air, the manufacturer of Ethafoam®,

tested various densities of Ethafoam®

including 220 in September 2011 with results

“showing an overall result of ‘PASS’ [which] show that on the basis of the test carried

out that the product is safe for direct contact with art objects for use in display,

packaging, transportation and storage.”187

David A. Scott administered all three tests.188

For MasterPak he operated under

Artech Services, “specialists in the identification of pigments, corrosion products and the

testing of materials for display and storage” and was identified with a resume like

184

Sealed Air, “Determined and Innovative.” See Chapter 6 “Storage Materials” for more information on

recycling Ethafoam®.

185 David A. Scott, “Results of Off-Gassing Test (Oddy Test) - Dow Chemical Ethafoam™ & Sealed Air

®

CelluPlank® & CelluCushion

®,” MasterPak, http://www.masterpak-usa.com/oddy-test.pdf (accessed

August 15, 2011). 186

University Products, “Product Information Sheet – Sealed Air Technical Information Sheet,”

https://www.universityproducts.com/secure/resources/cat_54_2.pdf (accessed August 15, 2011). 187

Sealed Air, “Sealed Air Technical Information Oddy Test Results,”

http://www.sealedairspecialtymaterials.com/na/en/pdf/oddytest.pdf (accessed August 15, 2011). 188

In having the same person conduct all the tests the question arises whether the true ideal that a material

must be pass repeatedly was compromised.

77

description.189

For Sealed Air it was simply stated “Test Authority: Tests were conducted

and results certified by Dr. David A. Scott, 2054 Walpole Avenue, Los Angeles, CA

93637.”190

For University Products he was simply identified as “Dr. David A. Scott.”191

Ethafoam®

MRC®192

, Ethafoam®

HRC®193

, Stratocell®

RC®194

Three foams were tested as possible sustainable alternatives to Ethafoam® 220

and are also manufactured by Sealed Air. These foams are recycled-content polyethylene

foams with a guaranteed minimum recycled resin content of 65% for Ethafoam® HRC

®

and Stratocell® RC

® and 100% for Ethafoam

® MRC

®.195

All three samples of the foam were physically almost identical. All were dark

grey in color and two inches thick, with the Stratocell® RC

® sample being two inch-thick

planks laminated together.196

They were slightly less dense than the Ethafoam®220

sample tested, except the Stratocell® RC

® which was slightly less dense than both

recycled-content Ethafoam® samples. These three foams have the same working qualities

as Ethafoam®

220 with “minimal difference in the protective qualities and strength […]

189

David A. Scott, “Results of Off-Gassing Test.” David A. Scott’s description was: “David A. Scott, BA.

BSc. CChem. PhD. FRSC. FIIC. Chair-UCLA/Getty Program in Archaeological and Ethnographic

Conservation, and Professor in Art History and Archaeology at UCLA, 2003 to present BSc. in Chemistry,

University of Reading, 1971; BA in Archaeological Conservation, Institute of Archaeology, London 1979;

Ph.D. from University College London in 1982. Awarded FRSC in 1991 and FIIC in 1994. Lecturer in

conservation at University College, Institute of Archaeology, Department of Conservation and Materials

Science, from 1981-7. In 1987 he joined the GCI as Head of the Getty Museum Services Research

Laboratory, Getty Conservation Institute, 1987-2003; and Manager, Artech Services.” 190

Sealed Air, “Sealed Air Oddy Test Results.” 191

University Products, “Product Information Sheet.” 192

Product ID: 180 MRC. Manufactured by Sealed Air. Sample from Sealed Air Corporation received on

2/15/2012. 193

Product ID: 180 HRC. Manufactured by Sealed Air. Sample from Sealed Air Corporation received on

2/15/2012. 194

Product ID: NA. Manufactured by Sealed Air. Sample from Sealed Air Corporation received on

2/15/2012. 195


Sealed Air Specialty Materials, Ethafoam®

HRC®

– The Search is Over. According to this document no

colorants are added prior to or during the final plank extrusion, but speaking to a customer service

representative over the phone colorants are added for uniformity.

78

versus their virgin-resin counterparts. [Sealed Air’s] recycled foams should be considered

for applications where Ethafoam® and Stratocell

® PE foams are commonly used.”

197 The

similarity in dimensional stability between the virgin and recycled content PE foams

means that one can “maintain current design specifications, which means no need to

invest time redesigning.”198

By using recycled content PE foam, not only is new material

not needed, old material doesn’t enter the waste stream.

Sealed Air gathers the material to make its recycled content foams through a

“Closed Loop System” which, according to Sealed Air, allows them “to take back large

amounts of polyethylene foam to be reused to make our recycled PE foam products. We

work with our fabricator network and customers to take back the PE foam material

therefore diverting it from the landfill.”199

One of the sources of waste Ethafoam®

is

Dorfman Museum Figures, Inc., who has their scrap Ethafoam®

picked up by Sealed Air

on a regular basis.200

This recycling program has been ongoing for over two decades and

includes both their PE foams and other plastic products such as their bubble wraps.201

Much like Ethafoam® 220, these three foams are “CFC and HCFC-free as well as

recyclable.”202

These three foams have no published Oddy tests.

197

Sealed Air, “Infinite Usage, Infinite Uses.” The brochures for all materials list measureable qualities for

density, compressive strength, compressive set, compressive creep, tensile strength, tear resistance, cell

size, water absorption, thermal stability, static decay, surface resistivity, thermal conductivity and thermal

resistivity. 198

Sealed Air, “Sealed Air – Stratocell® R

®,” http://www.sealedairprotects.com/eu/EN/pdf/StratocellR.pdf

(accessed July 15, 2012); Sealed Air, “Infinite Usage, Infinite Uses.” 199



Sealed Air, “Maximum Performance Minimal Environmental Impact.” 202

Sealed Air, “Determined and Innovative.”

79

Coroplast®

Archival203

Coroplast®

Archival, manufactured by Coroplast, is the brand name for “a

chemically inert, extremely durable polypropylene copolymer, extruded twinwall [sic]

fluted plastic sheet free from additives such as coloring agents, antistatic and ultraviolet

inhibitors.”204

It is a translucent, and available in gauges from 2mm to 6mm in a variety

of widths. 205

Coroplast®

is marketed as being suitable for backing, mounting,

boxmaking, and making supports and it is often used as an alternative to cellulose

corrugated board.206

Unlike cellulose boards it is easily sterilized with alcohol or wiped

with water.207

It is often believed that “not all Coroplast®

is archival. Coroplast®

not specifically

indicated as such have coatings on the surface for commercial applications such as

printing and make it unsuitable for archival use.” 208

Not only is Coroplast®

Archival

called Archival but it is also marketed as chemically resistant, inert and does not off-gas,

which are all qualities desirable for collections care professionals. 209

Additionally it is

free from additives that are present in the non-archival Coroplast® boards. The most

common treatment that is not is a corona treatment, which is “in short a high frequency

203

Product ID: NA. Manufactured by Coroplast Inc. Sample available in lab purchased in 2011. 204

Coroplast, “Coroplast® Archival,” http://www.coroplast.com/catalog/coroplast-archival/ (accessed

February 28, 2013). CAMEO describes Corplast as a “copolymer of polypropylene and polyethylene.” 205

Coroplast, “Coroplast® Archival.”

206 Coroplast, “Coroplast

® Archival”; Talas, “Coroplast,” http://www.coroplast.com/catalog/coroplast-

archival/ (accessed February 28, 2013). 207

Coroplast, “Sterilization of Coroplast®,” http://www.coroplast.com/technicalinfo/steril.htm (accessed

February 28, 2013). 208

Talas, “Coroplast”; Archivart®, “Coroplast

®,” http://s390435715.onlinehome.us/home/categories/13

(accessed February 28, 2013). 209

Coroplast, “Coroplast® Archival.” Talas, “Coroplast.”

80

electric discharge towards a surface” which results in a microscopic change in the texture

of the plastic and allows it to be more easily printed on.210

The lack of a corona treatment is often singled out as being the reason why

Coroplast®

Archival is so special but there is no evidence to substantiate that claim and it

is likely an idea that is widely accepted and not contradicted.211

“[The corona] treatment

neither reduced nor changes the strength and appearance of [Coroplast®

].”212

Corogreen™213

Corogreen™, also manufactured by Coroplast, is marketed as a “sustainable

corrugated plastic sheet” that is “recyclable, reusable [and] returnable” and an “eco-

friendly” alternative for the graphics, packaging and construction industries.214

Its

sustainable qualities include “the highest amount of post-consumer/post-industrial

material in the industry” as well as qualifying for U.S. Green Building Council LEED

Credit.215

Corogreen™ is 100% polypropylene with white surfaces and black core and

available in 4, 6, 8, 10 mm gauges, of which the 4 mm was tested for this research.216

Like Coroplast® but unlike Coroplast

® Archival it has a corona-treated surface for

printability and is available with custom colored faces.217

210

[Jan or Frank] Eisby, “Corona Treatment: Why is it Necessary?”

http://plasticsnetwork.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/corona-treatment.pdf (accessed February 28, 2013). 211

For a lively discussion about whether or not the corona treatment is actually non-museum-quality see

this discussion on the Picture Framers Grumble, http://thegrumble.com/archive/index.php/t-27648.html. 212

Eisby, “Corona Treatment.” 213

Product ID: NA. Manufactured by Coroplast Inc. Sample from Coroplast Inc. Received on 2/13/2012. 214

Coroplast, “It’s Easy Being Greener With New CoroGreen™ Corrugated Sheet,”

http://www.coroplast.com/news/corogreen-launch.htm (accessed July 14, 2012). 215

Coroplast, “It’s Easy Being Greener.” 216

Coroplast, “CoroGreen™ Sustainable Corrugated Plastic Sheet,”

http://www.coroplast.com/catalog/corogreen/(accessed July 14, 2012). 217

Coroplast, “CoroGreen™.”

81

Although there is little published information or testing on the material, it is

possible that much like Coroplast® Archival, it has the unintentional qualities that make it

suitable for use in collections care. Both Coroplast® Archival and Corogreen™ are

manufactured by Coroplast, “the leading manufacturer of corrugated plastic sheet for the

sign and returnable packaging markets in North America.”218

Heritage Corrugated Board219

Talas’ Heritage Corrugated Board is a simple corrugated board with a blue-grey

face and natural white coloring on the reverse and for the corrugation. According to the

product description, it is commonly used for framing or for box-making “where the

objects [need to] sit against a non-pigmented surface, while still maintaining the

traditional blue/gray color on the outside.”220

This board is described as “greatly exceeding the quality of other boards available

on the market today, and passing much more stringent testing for permanence than

simply the Photo Activity Test.”221

These include a lignin test (TAPPI T 236 om-99)

resulting in a Kappa level of 1-2, which indicates it is lignin-free and a pH cold extraction

test (TAPPI T 509 om-02) resulting in a reading of 8.0-9.5, likely due to its 3% calcium

carbonate buffering.222

Additionally it also has certification for “ANSI IT 9.16 / ISO

14523-1999 (PAT test): ISO 9706 - Permanency requirements for paper: ANSI / NISO

Z.39.48-1992 Permanence for paper in Library and Archives.”223

218

Coroplast, “About Coroplast.” 219

Product ID: 613-3040. Manufactured by NA. Sample available in lab purchased in 2011 from Talas. 220

Talas, “Heritage Corrugated B-Flute,” http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catalog/product_specific

.cfm?ClientID=15&ProductID=77429 (Accessed July 9, 2012). 221

Talas, “Heritage Corrugated B-Flute.” 222


Talas, “Heritage Corrugated B-Flute.”

82

The Heritage Corrugated Board is made from “100% bleached alpha cellulose

[…] without the use of recycled or wooden fibers” and is free of optical brighteners.224

This board is made with a potato starch adhesive, which is a sustainable, recyclable

alternative to PVA adhesives used in some boards.225

Archivart®

Multi-Use Board226

Archivart® Multi-Use Board is light blue-grey in color on both faces and

corrugation. Much like all similarly colored museum-quality boards this material is

commonly called grey board, blue board or museum board and is used for making boards,

trays, boxes and as a protective layer in situations such as framing and shelving.

Archivart® developed this board “to provide strong, rigid panels meeting archival quality

requirements at a moderate price level.”227

The sample tested is a single-wall corrugated board. As stated in the product

description on the Archivart® website, “… the paper used in the manufacture of these

panels is acid-free and lignin-free, featuring excellent strength characteristics and added

buffer to protect against acid migration. A waterresistant [sic], modified starch adhesive

of neutral pH is used for corrugating” with a pH value between 7.5 and 8.5.228

The starch

adhesive, as stated before, is a sustainable quality since it is more easily recyclable than

PVA adhesives sometimes used in boxboard production.

224



Product ID: 7-0010. Manufactured by Archivart®. Sample available in lab purchased in 2011 from

Archivart®.

227 Archivart

®, “Boards – Multi-Use Board,” http://www.archivart.com/ (accessed July 9, 2012).

228 Archivart

®, “Boards – Multi-Use Board.”

83

Superior Millboard™ Bookbinding/Boxmaking Board (tested)229

and EcopHant™ Recycled Archival Boxboard

CXD is a company based out of Bedford, England, that aims to provide “a

comprehensive range of high quality conservation storage and display products including

furniture, acid-free boxes, museum boards and specialist papers to Museums, Galleries,

Libraries and Archives worldwide.”230

CXD sells through Larson-Juhl in North America.

CXD manufactures two sustainable museum-quality boards: EcopHant™ and

Superior Archival Millboard™. Both boards are inherently similar, simply manufactured

at different thicknesses with EcopHant™ board being made less dense, for die-cutting

and creasing, than the Superior Millboard™, which is made to a higher density for

bookbinding and could also be used as a sturdier boxboard. Superior Millboard was

tested since the interior could be de-plied more. The boards are described as acid and

lignin-free, 100% chemically purified wood-free cotton cellulose fiber, pH 7-7.5, free of

optical brighteners, passes a Photographic Activity Test, buffered with calcium carbonate

and the color is bleed-proof and light-fast.

Both boards are “green in colour and by nature” a reference to the fact that they

are light green, or “elephant green” as described by CXD, in color and made from

recycled material.231

They are made exclusively of the waste material created during

manufacturing of CXD’s Premier™ Grade One archival quality paper and boxboard

which is then re-pulped using clean water, internally sized and formed “on an adhesive

free, intermittent cylinder board machine. This process and the quality of the Premier™

229

Product ID: BDSMBE1971. Manufactured by Conservation by Design Limited. Sample from

Conservation by Design Limited distributed by Larson-Juhl received on 2/13/2012. 230

Conservation By Design Limited, “About Us,” http://www.conservation-by-

design.co.uk/home.aspx?pagename=history (accessed July 9, 2012). 231

Conservation By Design Limited, “New Recycled Green Archival Storage Box.”

84

archival waste fiber used produces a board of great strength and unusual purity for a

recycled board.”232

The manufacturing process is CXD’s attempt to have “zero waste in

its box manufacturing by recycling its […] post-production paper and board waste.”233

Whereas many companies have similar product ranges, at the time of writing

CXD is the only company to produce a sustainable board designed specifically for

collections care. Manufacturing a sustainable board stems from “[CXD] founder, Stuart

Welch, [who] had the vision to establish an ethical company with a positive philosophy

dedicated to creative, open-minded design and products that would answer the needs of

all areas of cultural preservation.”234

232

Conservation By Design Limited, EcopHant™ and Superior Millboard™ [Bedford, England, Catalogue

Volume 1, 2011], 7. 233

Conservation By Design Limited, “New Recycled Green Archival Storage Box.” 234

Conservation By Design Limited, “About Us.”

85

Additional Observations about Selecting Materials

Many materials such as textiles, sewing threads, foams, boards, cardstocks,

papers, plastic films and adhesives were considered and not tested for a variety of

reasons, but they all had the potential to pass and be sustainable and museum-quality.

One of the materials strongly considered was Crescent® Recycled Mounting

Board. This material was one of the first materials found when the research began in the

summer of 2011, with a webpage describing it as follows, “the core and surface paper of

this 14-ply, eco-friendly mounting board from Crescent are both made from 100%

recycled paper fibers. Crescent® Recycled Mounting Board is white on both sides, with a

surface paper that is buffered and acid-free, ideal for backing, mounting, and presentation

of art, posters, photographs, and more.”235

Several months later the webpage was no

longer available and redistributors of the material listed it as out of stock or discontinued.

Since December 2011 a similar if not the same material appeared described as follows,

“Recycled Mounting Boards. White two sides. Buffered acid-free surface papers. pH 8.2

± .5.” available in sheets of 32” x 40” and single or double thicknesses.”236

Had it not

been apparently discontinued in late 2011 it would have been selected for testing.

Another group of materials that were investigated and considered for testing were

papers and cardstock. One option was a 100% Recycled Cardstock that purports to be

“100% recycled Acid and Lignin Free” and is available through Australian craft company

235

Crescent Cardboard Company, LLC, “Crescent Product Information Guide,”

http://www.crescentcardboard.com/pig0722.html (accessed August 9, 2011). 236

Crescent Cardboard Company, LLC, “Art and Illustration Products,”

http://www.crescentcardboard.com/artill10.html (accessed April 9, 2012).

86

The Happy Crafter. 237

Being shipped from such a distance the carbon footprint would

negate any positive aspects. Furthermore it does not appear to be available in a neutral

color or undyed and is only available in 12” square sheets, neither of which are desirable

for use in preventive conservation.238

Similarly from English craft site eco-craft.co.uk a

variety of cardstocks with 70-100% recycled content and purport to be pH neutral and

acid free were considered, but are still too distant and only available in standard A3, A4

and A5 sheet sizes.239

As research continued and a select group of preliminary materials

were chosen, desirable options for large size sheets of cardstock became available but

were not chosen due to time constraints.

Many textiles and sewing threads were also considered for testing however the

limited selection possible in an Oddy test would not have been representative of the wide

range of textiles and sewing threads used in conservation. Considering textiles used in

collections care are usually made for non-collections purposes, such as 3M’s Tyvek® and

plain cotton or muslin fabric, it was easy to find sustainable options but impossible to

find options specifically described with museum-quality aspects. The range of materials

included organic cotton, a high-quality fiber made from a low-grade beech wood called

Tencel or recycled polyester fabrics and threads made by companies such as Teijin and

Kayavlon which are leading the way in refining the production process so that recycled

polyester fibers are comparable in quality and purity to virgin polyester.

237

The Happy Crafter, “100% Recycled Cardstock (12x12),”

http://www.thehappycrafter.com.au/category.php?id_category=23 (accessed April 9, 2012). 238

The Happy Crafter, “100% Recycled Cardstock.” 239

Eco-Craft, “Bulk Recycled Card Stock (120g to 325g),” https://secure.eco-

craft.co.uk/acatalog/Bulk_Card_Stock.html (accessed April 9, 2012).

87

Materials Testing Results

The results from the tests were surprising. In the first test the control was

unaffected with no change in color or and no surface deposits, indicating an uncorrupted

testing procedure, and all the materials passed except for Superior Millboard.240

For the

Superior Millboard coupons, the copper coupon showed slight darkening, the lead

coupon showed white-colored surface deposits evenly over the coupon and the silver

coupon darkened significantly and also showed white surface deposits in concentrated

areas. Since Superior Millboard was the only material being sold as museum-quality, this

result was not expected. After discussing it with the manufacturer CXD, it was

discovered that the tested sample was from a corrupted batch where the manufacturing

mill mistakenly included excessive sulfur, which would explain the affected coupons.

This is an example of why the assumed quality of a material should be question, and why

every new batch of materials purchased should be tested.

In the second test, a new Superior Millboard sample was attained and tested along

with the original Superior Millboard, Corogreen™, Ethafoam®

MRC® and Aida cloth, a

material used in a peer’s thesis.241

The original Superior Millboard failed but the new

sample passed with unaffected coupons, along with all other tested materials.242

The

control was unaffected indicating an uncorrupted testing procedure. Like the first test the

original sample of Superior Millboard failed with similar results; a darkening of the

copper coupon more prominent than the first test, a lightening of the lead coupon caused

240

See Appendix 3A and 3B for the completed Oddy Test Document for Test 1. 241

See Appendix 4A and 4B for the completed Oddy Test Document for Test 1. 242

These results, which included an unaffected control along, passing and failing results and repeated

results can be considered in many ways an success to the procedure as a whole.

88

by white colored surface deposits and a significant darkening of the silver coupon with

concentrated white colored surface deposits. The new sample of Superior Millboard

passed with no change in color and no surface deposits.243

Proving that the results are

repeatable will be an important factor in changing the perceptions of sustainable

museum-quality materials.

These results, which indicate that there may very well be materials that are both

museum quality and sustainable contradict many ideas, beliefs and statements that are

preventing sustainable materials from being used in collections care. The belief that

sustainable materials are by default of a lower quality due to impurities or variances in

production is not substantiated by this Oddy test, or by literature describing technological

advances improving processing of recycled materials. Both the EcopHant and the

Ethafoam® foams are produced with known original source materials from a closed loop

system. These results also challenge the notion that the museum-quality materials

currently being used are good enough and innovation is not worth seeking. Although

these results cannot be taken as unquestionable proof that the materials are safe for use in

collections care, the fact that they passed two Oddy Tests indicates they meet the basic

standard most collections care professionals have when considering the use of a material.

Other tests could have been carried out to add to the Oddy Test results but were

not for a variety of reasons including cost, time, access to required supplies or equipment

and applicability. An acid-determinant test, conducted to detect off-gassing of volatile

compounds using A-D [acid-determinant] Strips manufactured by IPI, was the most notable

test of these because “[the A-D strips] can be used as a quick preliminary screening method

243

See Appendix 5 for detail photographs of the coupons for the controls, the tested Superior Millboards

and the Ethafoam® MRC

® for a comparison as a passing material.

89

before undertaking more time-consuming tests such as the Oddy test.”244

In researching

using A-D Strips to test non-photographic material the author spoke to Jean-Louis

Bigourdan, IPI’s Media Collection Products & Services Representative and contact

person for inquiries about A-D Strips, where he said that the tests would likely be

inconclusive as they were not designed to test non-photographic materials.245

The foams could be subjected to compression tests, and the boards to warping and

breaking point tests, but these tests would provide statistical information rather than any

indication as to whether or not they are suitable for use in collections care. Other tests,

such as gas chromatography/mass spectrometry are “only available to those with

sophisticated laboratory facilities and there is little information relating to the

concentrations of pollutants which can be harmful. Therefore identification of the species

present cannot easily be related to the corrosiveness of a particular material. There may

also be synergistic effects where combinations of various pollutants are more corrosive

than individual ones.”246

Similar tests such as Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

would also give difficult to interpret results. As an indication of how complex materials

testing can be IPI, one of the leading organizations in the field, offers “testing services

[…] to manufacturers of imaging, framing, and archival storage and display materials

[…] include light-stability, air pollution, humidity-fastness, abrasion sensitivity, pH,

alkaline reserve, and photographic activity” through their many labs which research and

244

Catherine Nicholson & Elissa O'Loughlin, “The Use of A-D Strips for Screening Conservation and

Exhibit Materials,” American Institute for Conservation, http://cool.conservation-

us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v15/bp15-11.html (accessed July 8, 2012).This web page is the online

publication of a poster presented at the Book and Paper specialty group poster session, AIC 24th Annual

Meeting, June 10-16, 1996, Norfolk Virginia. 245

As is indicated by the use of materials made for other industries, collections care professionals are not

deterred by a prescribed usage of materials. Many professionals have used A-D strips to test non-

photographic museum-quality materials as is indicated by Nicholson and O’Loughlin’s “The Use of A-D

Strips for Screening Conservation and Exhibit Materials.” 246

Green and Thickett, Testing Materials for Storage and Display, 145.

90

test, among other qualities, accelerated aging, humidity-fastness, the effects of various

elements contributing to air pollution, various forms of light-fastness, brittleness, folding

endurance, wet-scratching, alkaline reserves and pH testing.247

The IPI’s scientists offer

their services for a cost far beyond the reach of most collections, such as a photographic

activity for $850 for the “first two samples inclusive (minimum charge)”248

The difficulty in certifying a material’s appropriateness for use in collections care

is that it is near impossible to standardize which tests are needed for each material.

Furthermore due to the breadth of regulating organizations such as the American National

Standards Institute (ANSI), the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry

(TAPPI), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the American

Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), it is near impossible to standardize all

possible tests for all possible materials. For that reason other tests, such as a Belstein Test

to identify for the presence of chlorine in plastics (used to differentiate polyester films

such as Mylar from similar but unsafe clear films) or a Sodium Azide Test to identify the

presence of sulfur (which can tarnish silver if used in close proximity), can be used for

their practical pass-fail results.249

Considering there is no test to unconditionally certify that a material is safe for

use in collections care, the author concludes that this testing is an exploration to broaden

247

Image Permanence Institute, “Overview Statement – Quantifying Specific Properties of Products Using

Established Methods,” Rochester Institute of Technology,

https://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/testing/overview (accessed January 24, 2013). 248

Image Permanence Institute, “Photographic Activity Test (PAT),” Rochester Institute of Technology,

https://www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/testing/pat (accessed January 24, 2013). 249

Sodium Azide Test in Conservation and Art Materials Encyclopedia Online,

http://cameo.mfa.org/browse/record.asp?key=2171&subkey=8653&materialname=s&browse=1&search_di

splaycount=10000&search_start=1 ; Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry , “Reducible

Sulphur in Paper and Paperboard,” http://www.tappi.org/Downloads/unsorted/UNTITLED---

0104T406pdf.aspx (accessed January 24, 213). In some cases there may be a standardized procedure and

results by governing bodies, an example of which is TAPPI’s T406:08 for the Sodium Azide Test.

91

the materials available and is also a concerted effort to innovate the static acceptance of

perceived acceptance toward storage materials. In the near future searching for

sustainable museum-quality materials will be easier and the obstacles explored in Part II

will lessen with continued research. Along with perseverance from those who believe that

sustainability is indeed a quality aspect of a material, testing will overcome the obstacles

preventing a sustainable museum-quality material from being widely accepted in

collections care.

92

CONCLUSION

Changing the idea that “we do not work in a sustainable industry” 250

Collections care is more than temperature readings, Oddy test results and keeping

untouched artifacts in unlit rooms; it is about making sure collections can be studied and used

as teaching tools now and in the future. “We care about saving beautiful and meaningful

places, plants, creatures and things because we are spiritual and cultural. To save them we

must value the systems that preserve them.”251

Museums, as holders of collections and places

of education, “need to take a much stronger leadership role in inspiring the public to make

changes in the way they live and operate. […] People come to our facilities for inspiration

and learning; they are ready for us to lead by example.”252

Before the general public can be

encouraged by a sustainable museum, museum professionals need to feel that sustainability is

an important part of what they do and important to the conservation process as a whole.

Discussions about sustainability are happening throughout cultural heritage – at

conferences and in blogs, silently behind the scenes and prominently through exhibitions.

Tim Johnson, NMAI Associate Director for Museum Programs, discussed the museum’s

interest in caring for the environment at the 2011 Living Earth Symposium and the museum

dedicated a multi-media exhibition, entitled “Conversations with the Earth,” to “documenting

indigenous responses to climate change around the world” which was then discussed on the

250


Brophy and Wylie, “Saving Collections and the Planet,” 52-57 and 59-60. 252


93

museum’s blog by both staff and interns.253

It is this multi-faceted view of sustainability that

is becoming the norm.

While sustainable collections care is still a niche topic, the growing interest in it will

lead to a field where “those [professionals] coming along now will have been raised in the

culture where the three Rs don’t mean readin’, ritin’, and ‘rithmetic, they mean Reduce,

Reuse, Recycle.”254

In a culture where sustainability is a natural facet of heritage

preservation, it will be considered part of gauging the success of a museum. “Instead of just

being a single bottom line of profit, it is now a triple bottom line (TBL) for people, planet,

[and] profit. Your institution’s TBL should be able to show positive effects for people, the

environment, and your income.”255

Much as there are goals to meet a certain visitorship

number or to make a certain amount of profit, there should be goals for energy reduction or

use of sustainable materials in exhibitions. While there is no pre-set way of becoming more

sustainable, “true environmental support starts from the beginning” and that first step,

whatever it is, no matter how small, is a step in the right direction.256

“Sustainability doesn’t

have to be about building a building. Sustainability should run all through operations. Should

we turn off the faucet? Should we save energy?”257

For far too long the care of collections had the unintentional but justified expense of

negatively impacting the environment, but that attitude is beginning to change. People working

in heritage preservation today lay the groundwork for the future; the environment and the

collections left to them need to be taken care of by us. Much like our predecessors responded

253

National Museum of the American Indian, “Creating a Climate of Change: A Sustainable Future for the

Living Earth (live blogging the 2011 Living Earth Symposium)” http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2011/07/live-

blogging-creating-a-climate-of-change-a-sustainable-future-for-the-living-earth.html (Accessed March 1, 2012). 254

Anne Lane, e-mailed message to author, October 1, 2012. 255

Brophy and Wylie, The Green Museum, 8. 256

Sealed Air, “Maximum Performance Minimal Environmental Impact.” 257

Brophy and Wylie, “It’s Easy Being Green,” 38-39.

94

to tough situations like documenting large collections before digital photography, we need to

address sustainability the best we can now. Change is a constant and future advances in

science and technology will make it easier to be sustainable in collections care, but we cannot

wait for them to happen.258

As the MCI has listed “accountability” as a value of its

operations, we must be held accountable for our own work – “the international conservation

community should hold it [self] accountable for the integrity, applicability, and value of its

work.”259

The foundation of collections care is that both immediate and distant effects of our

actions are considered and that same thought process can be used to look at sustainability.

“Currently accepted practice is not static. […] All conservation professionals must continue

to review the literature, monitor and review past treatments, and share with colleagues their

experiences-both practical and experimental-through discussion and publication.”260

Museum

professionals are not ones to operate with their heads in the sand and it is up to us to fill in

the gaps in research when we see them. For that reason, this paper was written to combine

abstract concepts, theoretical possibilities and real-world perspectives. We can learn from our

collective experiences, and take what others have done to improve our own situations.

Sustainability within heritage preservation will not and cannot be an immediate change, but a

gradual one.

258


Museum Conservation Institute, Our Next 10 Years, 6. 260

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Materials and Methods,” http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=554

(accessed (accessed August 29, 2011).

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Appendix 1: Blank Oddy Test Document

Supply List

Oven: Blue M Stabil-Therm®

Bench Type Gravity Convection

Laboratory Oven Model OV-12A

Metal Foils at >99.5% purity: Lead, Copper, Silver

Glass Test Tubes: 3-50 mL + 3-1 mL vials per material + Control

Silicon Stoppers for each 50mL test tube.

Distilled Water: .5 mL / 1 mL vial. pH 7. pH strips, NaOH

Clean Surfaces: Cover surfaces with Mylar/Paper.

Equipment: Camera, Stereomicroscope, Scale

Documentation: Temperature log, Materials Log

Glass Bristle Brushes: 3. Label with what metal it is used with.

Materials to be tested: 6 gm/material + sample

Test Tube Tray(s)

Piece(s) Coroplast: Tray-Sized,

Velcro

Acetone/Alconox

Kim-Wipes/Cotton Swabs

2 Tweezers

Box of Powderless Nitrile Gloves

Small Transfer Pipette/Dropper

N-19 respirator

Scissors, Xacto-knife

Teflon Tape

Before beginning, select your materials and keep a sample for reference in the future. The first column

(ID#) will act as a reference for the Photo Record Sheet

ID

#

Name Product

ID

Manufacturer and/or Retailer Date

Purchased

Notes regarding

(finishes, colors etc.)

1. CONTROL N/A N/A N/A N/A

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

103

Procedure – Day 1 & 2

Note: Document all stages with photography. Wear gloves at all times.

Day 1 – Preparation

1. Gather all materials needed in advance. Make sure the distilled water is pH 7.

2. Label test tubes with the metal and material ID. Create a system for placement on trays if need be.

3. Treat all testing materials in the state they may be used (wash textiles, boards don’t need anything etc).

4. Wash the test tubes in warm water and then rinse in distilled water.

5. Preheat oven to 60 oC

6. Set prep areas (see below for materials needed)

Day 2 – Preparation

Processing Testing Materials: (this can be done the day before if left undisturbed)

Materials needed: acetone, Kimwipes, scale, scissors/Xacto knife, materials to be tested

1. Wipe tools before and between materials

2. Using a scale, measure out 3 – 2 gram amounts of materials to be tested (one for each metal)

3. Cut or delaminate each sample amount into small pieces to increase surface area exposed during test.

4. Store each sample in a sanitized location (a new polyethylene bag, or beaker, etc)

Test Tube Preparation:

Materials needed: acetone, Kimwipes, tweezers, test tubes, vials, silicon stoppers, Xacto knife,

pipette/dropper, distilled water

5. Wipe tools before and between materials.

6. Wipe test tubes, vials and silicon stoppers with acetone using a Kimwipe, tweezers.

7. Rinse inside of test tubes with acetone.

8. Place 2 g of materials to be tested into bottom of test tube

9. Using a pipette/dropper/syringe, place .5 mL of distilled water in vial

10. Gently lower vial into test tube making sure not to spill any water.

11. Cut a slit into silicon underside of stopper using Xacto knife (this is where the coupon will go).

Coupon Cleaning and Completing Test Prep:

Materials needed: acetone, Kimwipes, tweezers, Mylar, glass-bristle brushes, metal foils, scissors, gloves,

12. Wipe tools before and between materials. Use new gloves with each material and then dispose after.

13. Set three stations with clean Mylar for surface and correct glass-bristle brush.

14. Cut metals into .5 cm x 1 cm coupons (specific weight?).

15. Polish and degrease each coupon with glass bristle brushes. Wear respirator mask when working with

lead.

16. Wipe coupon with acetone and Kimwipe.

17. Coupons must not touch each other or any other surface. Immediately put coupons in slit in silicon

stoppers as vertical as possible to reduce condensation from forming on the coupon.

18. Place corresponding silicon stopper with marked test tube. (copper with copper etc)

19. Seal test tube with thread-seal tape.

20. Place Coroplast over filled test tube tray and.

21. Place filled test tube trays in oven and close door.

Additional Notes:

104

Day 3 – 31 – In the oven

For the following 28 days, the oven should be monitored and a daily log kept with the temperature noted. If

the temperature fluctuates drastically then the test may be corrupted.

Day – Date

(dd/mm/yy)

Time Temperature/Observations Observer

1 -

2 -

3 -

4 -

5 -

6 -

7 -

8 -

9 -

10 -

11 -

12 -

13 -

14 -

15 -

16 -

17 -

18 -

19 -

20 -

21 -

22 -

23 -

24 -

25 -

26 -

27 -

28 -

Day 31 – Gathering the results

Materials needed: clean work area, camera, tweezers,

1. Turn oven off and carefully open door. Note if any test tubes have broken or popped (rare).

2. Carefully remove test tube tray (may need piece of handling cloth, gloves) and place on work surface.

3. Keeping the test tubes vertical, inspect the materials for degradation and note observations.

4. Keeping the test tubes vertical remove the thread seal tape and the silicon stopper with the coupon

inside.

5. Remove the coupon stopper, record observations and repeat for all test tubes.

6. Assign a result (P, TP, U) and record on following page along with the attached coupons.

(Note: The test is corrupted if the control has corrosion.)

P - Pass: suitable for long-term use; no change compared with control. Red/orange iridescence may

appear on the copper control. Coupon should not have lost polished surface. Lead control coupon may

acquire a purple hue. Aqueous corrosion has occurred on lead control coupon on a few occasions.)

TP - Temporary Pass: suitable for indirect short term use; slight/questionable discoloration only, often

seen along lower edge and sides or as a few localized small spots.

U - Unsuitable for use: clearly visible corrosion or loss of polish, thin layer of corrosion over surface

7. SUGGESTION: Photograph both sides of the coupon and make sure to keep a log of photos as to not

get them confused. Suggestion: a bookmark photo with the name of each material. Alternative:

carefully scan both sides of the coupons.

105

Oddy Test Results – Photo Record Sheet

ID #

Material Name

Copper

(Cu)

Lead

(Pb)

Silver

(Ag)

Results

P – TP – U

1. Control

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Additional Notes:

106

Appendix 2: Scanned Images of Materials Tested

Ethafoam

® 220

Ethafoam

® HRC

®

Ethafoam

® MRC

®

Stratocell

® RC

®

Coroplast

Corogreen™

Heritage Corrugated Board

Archivart

® Multiuse Board

Superior Millboard (Original)

Superior Millboard (New)

107

Appendix 3A: Test 1 – Completed Page 1 of Oddy Test Document

Project Name: Thesis Part II: Materials Testing ____ Facilitators: Christian Hernandez/Janet Lee _________

Project Date Start: Saturday, March 10th

, 2012 _____ Project Date End: Sunday, April 11th

, 2012 _________

Supply List













Test Tube Tray(s)


Velcro

Acetone/Alconox


2 Tweezers



N-19 respirator


Teflon Tape



ID

#

Name Product

ID


Purchased

Notes regarding



2. Ethafoam® 220 Manufactured by Sealed Air Lab sample.

Purchased

2011

White, carved from

4” piece, cut off

exposed sides

3. Ethafoam® MRC

® Manufactured and sample

from Sealed Air

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

Black, 2” thick

4. Ethafoam® HRC


from Sealed Air

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

Black, 2” thick

5. Stratocell® RC


from Sealed Air

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

Black, 2-1” thick

pieces laminated

together

6. Coroplast® Archival Manufactured by Coroplast

Inc.

Lab sample.

Purchased

2011

Translucent, #-flute

7. Corogreen™ Manufactured and Sample

from Coroplast Inc.

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

White faces with

black flutes, #-flute

8. Heritage Corrugated

Board

Distributed by Talas Lab sample.

Purchased

2011

Light blue-grey face

with white flutes and

white face

9. Archivart® Multiuse

Board

Manufactured and

Distributed by Archivart®

Lab sample.

Purchased

2011

Light blue-grey,

single wall, #-flute

10. Superior Millboard Manufactured and Sample

from Conservation By

Design/Larson-Juhl

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

Dark green pressed

millboard

108

Appendix 3B: Test 1 – Completed Page 4 of Oddy Test Document


Additional Notes:

109

Appendix 4A: Test 2 – Completed Page 1 of Oddy Test Document

Project Name: Thesis Part II: Materials Testing #2 __ Facilitators: Christian Hernandez/Julia Carlson ______

Project Date Start: Wednesday June 6, 2012 _______ Project Date End: Wednesday July 4, 2012 _________

Supply List













Test Tube Tray(s)


Velcro

Acetone/Alconox


2 Tweezers



N-19 respirator


Teflon Tape



ID

#

Name Product

ID


Purchased

Notes regarding



2. Aida Cloth N/A N/A N/A N/A

3. Superior Millboard

(Original Sample)

N/A Manufactured and Sample


Design/Larson-Juhl

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

Dark green pressed

millboard

4. Superior Millboard

(New Sample)

N/A Manufactured and Sample


Design/Larson-Juhl

Sample

Received

May 2012

Light green pressed

millboard

5. Ethafoam® MRC

® N/A Manufactured and sample

from Sealed Air

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

Black, 2” thick

6. Corogreen™ N/A Manufactured and Sample

from Coroplast Inc.

Sample

Received

Feb 2012

White faces with

black flutes, #-flute

7.

8.

9.

10.

110

Appendix 4B: Test 2 – Completed Page 4 of Oddy Test Document


Additional Notes:

111

Appendix 5: Detail Photographs of Oddy Test Results

112

Appendix 6: Questionnaire Sent to Interviewees

Questionnaire for Collections Care Professionals

Regarding Sustainable Practices and Materials

Thank you in advance for responding to this questionnaire, which will add some much

appreciated practical information to my thesis research as a conservation graduate student

from the Fashion and Textile Studies program at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

You can email responses to (author’s email address) with “Questionnaire Response” in

the subject line.

The terms sustainable or sustainability used in this questionnaire refers to environmental

sustainability and the general sense of care and concern for the environment is what is

intended.

The following questions are geared to gather information about sustainability within

collections care and art conservation. Feel free to include as much or as little information

as you wish. The resulting answers may be used as part of my thesis, which will exist in

printed copies and through any lectures given on the topic. If you wish to remain

anonymous please let me know and I will not include any identifying information.

1. Is caring for the environment part of your institute’s mandate or mission?

2. Are sustainable practices or materials incorporated in any of the following areas

of collections care: Environmental Monitoring, Emergency Planning and

Mitigation, Integrated Pest Management, Documentation, Exhibition Design or in

the Storage Facility?

a. Examples of sustainable practices can include sealing windows in the

storage facility, using energy efficient equipment, unplugging rarely used

equipment, installing motion-sensors on lights, proofing disaster plans

digitally, paperless collections surveys, utilizing companies that promote

sustainable practices, recycling waste, creating reusable exhibition mounts

or broadening the acceptable temperature/relative humidity range to

alleviate pressure on the HVAC system.

3. The following questions pertain to materials used in housing artifacts in storage,

which is a large part of my research.

a. Do you incorporate sustainable practices into how you use museum-

quality materials? This can include prototyping in non-museum materials,

or recycling waste materials.

b. Do you use sustainable materials in storage? This can include the

furniture, flooring, or housing materials.

c. There are currently very few sustainable museum-quality materials on the

market. How willing would you be to switch from currently used materials

113

to sustainable museum-quality materials, such as a boxboard made from

recycled paper or foam made from recycled resin?

4. Is there anything else you would like me to know regarding collections care and

sustainability, either within your institution or your own personal thoughts?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Further examples of sustainable practices in collections care:

a. Environmental Monitoring (temperature, relative humidity, HVAC

systems)

i. Examples include broadening the acceptable temperature/relative

humidity range, sealing windows in the storage facility or using

energy efficient equipment.

b. Electricity and Lighting

i. Examples include unplugging rarely used equipment, utilizing

renewable energy sources or digitizing collections to minimize

energy use in the storage facility.

c. Emergency Planning and Mitigation

i. Examples include proofing disaster plans digitally, purchasing a

backup generator with renewably sourced energy or compiling

sustainable-alternative supplies.

d. Integrated Pest Management

i. Examples include utilizing companies that promote sustainable

practices when contracting out treatments.

e. Documentation

i. Examples include paperless collections surveys, using recycled-

content paper when possible, minimizing printing of extra

accession records and recycling any waste paper.

f. Exhibition Design or Renovations of Storage Facility

i. Examples include reusing walls created for exhibition design,

creating reusable exhibition mounts or placing motion-sensors on

lights.

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