airtight storage how?

Liz Day lday at iquest.net
Sun Oct 11 20:15:04 EDT 1998


My bug collection is stored with a lot of naphthalene, so I've always kept
it somewhere away from me where I wouldn't have to breathe the naphthalene
(like a closed room somewhere else in the house).  

Until now.  Now I've moved to a 1-bedroom apartment, with no outside
storage space.  The only space is the space I live in.  

Is there a good way to seal the collection so that none of the napthalene
fumes come out?  (My interpretation of this is, if you can't smell the
mothballs, then no fumes are coming out worth worrying about.)

The collection is housed in about 8 or 10 of those little museum trays
with the styrofoam in the bottom, the ones that fit inside Cornell
drawers, but there are no Cornell drawers.  The trays, some with open
tops, are inside RubberMaid plastic food-storage containers with lids. 
The napthalene is inside these containers too.  I have about 6 containers. 
(It's a small collection, but important.)  This method has kept pests out,
but the containers reek of mothballs, even with the lids closed. 

Does anyone have any creative suggestions on housing this stuff so it is
effectively airtight?   I will have to live and breathe with it 24/7.

Thanks,

Liz Day   
LDAY at iquest.net 
Indianapolis, Indiana, central USA - 40 N latitude, zone 5b.



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