Will all ponies eventually become flawed/break down?

[Eternia]

I just picked up my perfect masquerade, and noticed she is getting faint brown spots......is this the beginning of cancer?
I remember when I got her, 4 years ago, she was perfect. Now there are several of these light spots...Is this a fate all ponies will see as their plastic breaks down? will the existence of 'perfect ponies' become a thing of the past as time goes on? is there anything we can to do to stop the break down of the plastic?
it's just so tragic when a perfect pony suddenly gets spotty :/

[EmBee]

 
Hi fellow Alabamian!

I'm so sorry about your Masquerade.  I don't have any advice but I totally understand how that must feel!  It's sad seeing "immortal" things like our toys age with time.  Sometimes IMO it's environmental (moisture, bacteria, etc.) and sometimes it's exposure to extreme temperatures or sunlight.  I hope you find the answers you are looking for!

-Em

[karrie91]

I'm no scientist... but I do believe that the environment plays a factor on things decaying over time. It only takes touching the wrong thing to start a mold infestation and such. 

[Honeycomb]

Hugs, I'm so sorry about your Masqerade. It's not only tragic, but a nightmare. I'm constantly worrying about this. No idea what we can do about it, though.
Any scientists here?

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I'm sure if you kept them in a case with a non-changing ideal atmosphere and enviroment, they'd be fine.  But then your pony room would look like a big fancy lab.   

I think they all will start to break down eventually.  We're already at Year 30 for some of them! 

[Pickenprod]

Hi there, scientist here  .___.

I got a Masquerade recently as well, and I opened her up right away to clean and suchlike. I noticed some small brown flecks on the plastic inside her body. Since I reckon these cancery spots might spread to the surface one day, I made extra sure that her body stays DRY on the inside. Head left off for 2 weeks after she was washed, and silica gel packet placed inside for extra absorbency of vapor. And a bit of baking soda inside her hooves, too.

My Masquerade isn't perfect anyway (hardened body, head mismatch, eyes missing twinkle coating), but why let her deteriorate at a rapid rate? I figure my treatment might prolong her life as an unmarked pony. All items will eventually degrade, and in the grand scheme of things, everything will be melted/ground into little pieces over millions of years. If it makes you feel any better though, plastic items like ponies will be around for a heck of a long time. Sometimes makes me chuckle, as an environmentalist on one hand (wishing plastics were biodegradable) and a pony collector on the other (wishing plastic was even more indestructable)!

[StarlightGaze]

It's a shame to see our ponies degrade over time, but unfortunately nothing lasts forever. Perhaps 200 years from now, someone will find a pony still in good condition that was sealed away in protective case, among the ruins of some old building.

[Aflame]

  i want my toy to last forever !!!! xaflamex

[Eternia]

A note on her environment- it's a pretty consistent dry space. No direct sunlight, never much moisture in the air.

[HavACrumpet452]

They will all break down over time. Plastic does not have that rumored thousand year lifetime in our landfills. Those who become hard as rock seem to last longer, but hard plastic becomes brittle when exposed to sunlight and extreme temperature swings and very cold temperatures.

[Sugar]

Entropy will get us all in the end, my pretties (and our little ponies, too, cackle-cackle-cackle).

But in the meantime, I'm liking the measures you describe, Pickenprod.  I've still got my childhood Surprise and now Sunbeam, both with tiny brown splotches on.  I'm going to endeavour to open them up tonight and see what's inside, then maybe do a Dawn wash followed by intensive drying, silica gel, and baking soda.  Can't hurt!

It's the solidification of the vinyl that bothers me most, I think; I can live with blotchy ponies, my complexion isn't the greatest, so it doesn't bother me that some of my girls have spots, too.   But they were always so soft and squooshy, and the few I have that are now rigid just kind of make me sad...  Oh well...

I'm sure if you kept them in a case with a non-changing ideal atmosphere and enviroment, they'd be fine.  But then your pony room would look like a big fancy lab.   

^ do want!  With lots of stainless steel and blinking lights and esoteric machines that make strange hums...

[Baby Sugarberry]

Yes, everything degrades with time.  Nothing is immortal or unchanging, that'd be contrary to the nature of the universe itself.

There's a saying in the museum world, "Preservation is a myth; all we can do is slow down the march of time."

[NovelNerd]

I agree with Sugarberry. Nothing was meant to last forever, and I think at 30 yrs some of these girls/boys still look lovely. Take comfort that they are only showing age finally. My mother still has some of her old dolls that are close to fidty years old. They are in rough shape, but they are still hanging in there.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

^ do want!  With lots of stainless steel and blinking lights and esoteric machines that make strange hums...

I'm totally envisioning banks of ponies on shelves with hissing gases escaping from vents, blue lights and plexi-glass everywhere... total sci-fi movie moment, hahaha...

[hathorcat]

Ponies are made of plastic - plastic degrades and breaks down over time - so even if contained in a vacuum the plastic would eventually deteriorate [although it would take an exceptionally long time].

However, the pigments and the processes and the chemicals used of course vary from factory to factory and manufacture process to manufacture process, so of course different plastics due to their own infirmities will break down at different paces and to different degrees and under different pressures and conditions.

Its sad to think of our ponies degrading but at at least it will take hundreds of years to degrade in any significant way so long as we are taking care of them - they are PVC plastics after all and not made of biodegradable plastic. While it has been proven that some bacteria in certain conditions will break down plastic, bacteria in fact hate plastic and will avoid it at all costs hence why petroleum based plastics will not biodegrade. In fact the only true way to break down plastic is through photodegradation. This kind of decomposition requires sunlight, not bacteria: when UV rays strike plastic, they break the bonds holding the molecular chain together.

So all that being said I think as long as we take care of them its probably not something we have to worry about in our lifetimes.

Small chemical break downs like regrind and plasticiser and bromide issues should be the worst we have to contend with [as scary as those are!]