Mothballing is a process in which contaminated records and documents that are dry, or that have been dried after water damage, are sealed for a longer, but limited time. These documents can be affected by mould growth, or be soiled by mud or soot. They aren’t decontaminated before being mothballed. In individual cases where major soiling (mud) is present, a simple external cleaning is recommended. The documents are sealed in their original covering material (e.g. binders, folders, file jackets) individually or in logical groups, shrink-wrapped (no vacuum-packaging) and packed in cardboard boxes. The boxes are labelled, placed in palettes and returned to your location to be stored.. 

The process protects your holdings and is completely safe – there’s no danger of the contamination spreading and therefore no health threat to people. The boxes can be stored on palettes or in shelves, if correct handling is observed. Thanks to docusave’s digital inventory tool, every mothballed object has been indexed in the photo inventory (PDF); as such, it can be identified and located. We have instructions on how to handle a mothballed document, should you need to access it. In brief: you must send it to docusave for decontamination. Afterwards, it’s once again safe for use. Mothballing is a cost-effective alternative to decontamination.