Icon’s Modern Materials Group and the Natural History Museum are pleased to be hosting a one-day in-person symposium bringing together specialisms to discuss the challenge of using plastic for the storage of collections.
Plastic storage solutions are often adopted for collections storage due to their low cost and ease of use. However, questions around material stability, additives, longevity, environmental impact, and what exactly is ‘inert’ generally go unanswered in the face of shrinking resources.
The intention for this symposium is to hold a day of talks and open, honest discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the commercially-available products and issues encountered. We want to hear your questions, concerns and success stories, and discuss what testing and assurance measures can/should be undertaken. How can we better inform ourselves of the materials we are subjecting our collections to?
This call is open not only to conservators but to colleagues across the heritage sector and related sciences.
Alongside traditional presentations and key-note speaker, there will also be a virtual poster session/ 5-minute talks (there will be a second call for submissions for the virtual posters/5 minute talks later this year).
Presentation Topics
Presentations will be 20-25 minutes and will need to be presented in person at the Natural History Museum, London. This conference won’t be recorded but there will be post prints of the abstracts available (authors will be allowed to opt out). We hope the in-person nature of the conference will encourage open and non-judgmental discussions of potentially sensitive topics.
Presentation topics might include:
- Researching how well different plastic containers/plastic materials actually work for the storage of collections.
- Case studies, times when using plastics in museum storage went smoothly and times when it really didn’t. What worked, what didn’t and what people would change next time.
- Plastic success stories, what worked for you and how it is used.
- Talking through the trade-offs: longevity, cost and whether the benefits truly outweigh the drawbacks.
- Moments when teams decided not to use plastics and chose other materials instead, and why that choice made sense.
Submission Guidelines
Abstract submissions should include:
- Title of presentation
- Author(s) and affiliated institutions (if applicable)
- Presentation summary (max. 300 words)
Please submit your abstracts as an email attachment (Word document or PDF) to [email protected] before the submission deadline on Thursday 26 March 2026 at 17:00 BST.
Abstracts will be reviewed by a selection committee, with decision emails sent to authors on Tuesday 28 April 2026.