How to Remove Sticky Residue From Old Rubber Clad Plastic

Are your plastic products melting or disintegrating into a sticky gooey mess?

If so, your not alone, some of mine are too.

And I wasn't going to post about this when I first discovered it happing to some things I purchased a year or so back, but I'm finding more and more of the things I've paid good money for doing so. Hence this post.

First it was a pair of Headphones in which the ear muff just disintegrated into powder. Then another that not only disintegrated into little specks of black foam but when touched just flattened out into a sticky doughy mass. Like bread when the dough isn't cooked enough.

If told a pair of ear phones or ear buds were going to disintegrate in your ear - would you have bought them? I think not.

Then I found my Dell monitor trim doing the same thing. Seriously Dell... like you don't have a high enough spread on your bottom line you need to get that cheap in quality. And this was not a inexpensive led flat screen when I purchased it. And even if it was, I don't expect the trim to start disintegrating and turning to goo, let alone this quickly. Let me get a few years use out of it before the self disintegrate timer goes off thank you very much!

The worst so far has been a cordless screwdriver type thing. Brand new. Only used once and put back into the package and stored. I take it out to use it again 6 months later only to find the handle which is made of a soft touch rubber like plastic had completely disintegrated into a sticky stringy goo like substance. Or better described as reverted back to a semi liquid sticky goo like state. When I grabbed the handle to use it, my hand sunk into the soft rubber/plastic handle. When I took my hand off, a gooey stringy mess came with it. I've had to wrap it in a plastic bag. I thought it odd and put it away. Six months later it is unrecognizable as it's turned to a thick liquid mess. Not knowing what to do with it, as I do like to fix things, I wrapped it in plastic garbage bag. When I figure out how to remove the goo, I'll clean it up... it does work after all. It is newish. I didn't buy it to toss it in the trash. Especially since it is a decent electric screwdriver torque wise.

Next was a mouse I bought with a soft touch feel, you know the ones. Hard plastic but with a soft touch coating that looks and feels when new pretty dang cool. It too started to disintegrate back to a semi-liquid gooey sticky mess. So I tossed it. Thinking maybe I got something on it, but couldn't figure out what.

Then I noticed other things - like my Creative Labs Inspire T10 Desktop speakers which the front grill area has this soft touch matt finish, when I went to dust them off, were sticky. And they have gotten worse and worse.

Creative Inspire T10 Powered Speakers
Look great new - but in a year look out.

The above are new - This is mine after about 8 months and I paid more for the finish!

You can see clearly the brownish sticky goo all over the front face.

Here again you can see the finish turning to a sticky goo.
Everything is sticking to it, dust, the landlords cat hair.
Even a plastic bag remnant to the left side.
I wonder what is happening to the inside, as I've also
noticed the controls becoming sluggish.

I contacted Creative about this today, and hopefully they will offer a replacement set. If your speakers are doing the same, I suggest you contact them as well.

One thing I noticed, and this is not a down rank on China, but all the products I have that are melting into this sticky gooey mess, are made in China. I don't know what the type plastic is that gives it a soft feel that they are coating the hard plastic with. But it certainly, on these products, is not holding up. While other products with a similar soft feel coating, are holding up fine, also made in China. Obviously it's not the same quality plastic being used between the them.

Sounds to me like possibly some corporate leaders have pinched too many pennies to raise the bottom line at the expense of a little too much quality.

Either way - this is getting a little ridiculous with these products being produced in China being made using toxic, or incredibly inferior ingredients.

I have to think to myself, and out loud, How do you manufacture a product and not know with in a year or two it's going to disintegrate or produce acid or turn black and have mushrooms growing out of it?

Seriously I ask those in charge. You didn't know?
Oohh suuuure you didn't. wink wink

Lets try and do better for 2014 shall we?
(That's a rhetorical question)

How to Remove Sticky Residue From Old Rubber Clad Plastic

Source: https://ccanade.blogspot.com/2014/01/are-your-plastic-products.html