Question About Bluray Case Moisture/Mold

[BunyipPouch]

So this might be the wrong forum (if it is, please point me to the right place) but I was looking for advise/help about something that I can't get out of my head recently:

Moisture/Mold In Bluray Cases

Long story short: About a year or so ago we had a water leak in a wall in my house, we didn't notice for a while because the wall was covered by a shelf, and it rotted the wood and flooring by the shelf. We eventually got it fixed, dried out the flooring and wall and got it replaced. The problem: This wall was very close to where I keep my movie shelving.

About 2-3 weeks ago, I had a kind of epiphany: What if the water leak/moisture got into the movie cases? I've kind of been stressed out with borderline panic attacks thinking this could have ruined my movies, I'm an idiot and hadn't thought of it before. Should I be replacing all of the cases?

I've been going through cases to see if there's anything noticeable, the discs all seem to be fine, but I don't really know what to look for. For example, is this normal?:



The kind of little bubbles inside of the case. It's pretty common in a lot of these cases, but I don't have a comparison. Is that something that happens to most cases after a while, or could it be because of the wall leak? And is it mold or just harmless moisture bubbles? I don't even know if mold can grow in plastic cases. It's not in a lot of cases, but some have it (a small minority of them, but then again I've bought a lot of new films since the leak so it's hard to say which have been exposed the longest). Then again, I don't even know what mold in a bluray case would look like.

It's not something I ever paid attention to pre-leak so it's possible that stuff like that was there all along and has nothing to do with the leak.

Other examples of some of the more-noticeable ones, a lot of them there's nothing noticeable:









Thank you to whoever can help or give me reassurance. It would be greatly appreciated.

Half of me is like "this is nothing, it happens to a bunch of blu ray cases and means nothing, the disc is fine, just random harmless moisture bubbles" and the other half of me is like "everything will be ruined if i dont switch everything out ASAP and this might be mold and it'll spread to more cases and could ruin the discs", and it's driving me a bit crazy the past couple weeks.

[dissolute_dog]

I'll re-post the responses you got on the other thread so others who are having the same issue might benefit here as well.

Originally Posted by Leeon0

It's not moisture, it's an agent added to the plastic during manufacturing to prevent the plastic sheets from binding. The additive is greasy and literally sweats out of the plastic since it's an ingredient in the plastic. I wipe that grease off with Zeiss lens wipes soaked in denatured alcohol (the alcohol in the wipes evaporates too quickly to be useful). The crud can be pretty stubborn, requiring good elbow grease to get it off. Over time, the residue will reappear on the plastic surface but won't be as thick.

The disc is usually far enough from the case wall to prevent contact with the residue, but I have a handful of Viva Elites with faulty hubs that allow part of the disc to touch the case, in which case it would be wise to wipe off the slime. That said, if the disc gets affected, it's no problem—a couple of wipes with a microfiber cloth, and it's gone. But yeah that shit looks ugly, but it ain't H2O.

Originally Posted by dissolute_dog

Similar to what Leeon0 replied in the post above, that greasy residue/gassy spots you are seeing in your Blu-ray cases are very common in my experience too, and are part of the manufacturing and substances used to make the plastic cases. It's not because of your house's previous water leak, and there is most likely no need at all to replace your Blu-ray cases.

Thankfully, the scratch- and stain-resistant protective layer on Blu-ray discs seems to make them resistant to picking up any of this greasy/gassy residue from the plastic cases. And if any does happen to get onto the discs --- as Leeon0 said here --- it can be easily wiped off with a microfiber cloth.

I'll add, however, that some DVDs included in Blu-ray combo packs sometimes seem to have their surfaces fogged up over time, probably because they lack that protective layer to protect them from the greasy/gassy residue in the cases. It's happened to some of my DVDs. Sometimes they can be wiped off with just a microfiber cloth; other times, the "fog" is stuck on and requires cleaning-off with alcohol. In either case, though, playback of the DVDs doesn't seem to be affected.

Still, I don't feel good about the greasy/gassy residue in Blu-ray cases. I must say that the opaque, matte plastic used for the solid DVD cases in the late 90s/early 2000s have really proven themselves to be the nicest preservers of movie discs. When stored properly, they've kept my DVDs clean and functional without any such problems even after more than 20 years of aging. *fingers crossed*

I wish that the Blu-ray and 4K formats had used that same kind of opaque matte plastic for their cases, but maybe just in a different size and color from DVD cases to differentiate them. Oh well. =/

[oddbox83]

I do notice I get tiny spots of white bits on discs and booklets when I pull out releases I’ve had for some time. It washes off discs no problem, booklets not so much. Is it similar to foxing?

I used to have them in a bookcase against a damp wall which probably made the moisture in the air too high but it’s been fixed for a few years now.

This sort of stuff is probably normal unless you store them in a climate controlled environment, it’s just those of us who want to keep things mint who get worked up about these things.

[Superemail]

I doubt it will be mold. If unsure cases can be cleaned with soap and water. Discs will most definetly not be damaged by this.

[KingMinger]

Had a panic attack when I found all that grease in my cases after giving them a dust down, thread is a stress saver!

[mamuin]

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[WinstomSmith1984]

I remember I found some plastic in a box that had been in storage for 20 years. The plastic had a honey-like material on top of it. I guess it was something that bled out of the plastic over a couple decades. This is the same type of material (much less worse than the plastic I found in the box).

I just hate that this happens. I wish plastic was more durable and didn't sweat like this. Maybe it's due to cheap processing?