[NHCOLL-L:1740] Re: container troubles

[Steve Halford]

On Wed, 23 Oct 2002 emoore at VMNH.ORG wrote:

> Dear Listers,
>
> After some more investigating, here's what I have found out:
>
> The caps are low density polyethylene.
> The manufacturer doesn't know why they would be cracking.
> They were purchased at different times.
> I am 100% sure that we have never used pesticides (not even napthalene)in that collection.  Our mammalogist has been here for the history of the collection and would know and is aware of the hazards of using pesticides on those containers.

It sounds like a bad batch of lids.  About twenty years ago Nalgene had a
problem with embrittlement of their LPE (linear polyethylene) bottles,
apparently caused by a bad formulation of plastic.  The symptoms were very
similar, lids sometimes couldn't be unscrewed without the bottle
shattering (and sometimes there was something nasty in the bottle!)
Thousands of bottles had to be replaced worldwide, I still turn up the
occasional bad one.

Steve (halford at sfu.ca)
Museum Technician
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada