Think Twice Before Laminating: The Dangers of Permanent Document Protection

In today’s world, we often come across the need to preserve our important documents for a long period of time. Laminating the documents is one of the most common and widely used approaches to accomplishing this goal. Though it’s a common practice, many people don’t realize the drawbacks of laminating documents until after they’ve already done it.

First and foremost, lamination is a permanent process that cannot be undone. A laminated document is permanent and cannot be altered after lamination. As a result, you will be unable to correct an error or make a change to the document in the future. This is a serious problem if the document is official or legally binding in nature

Secondly, laminating a document can lead to its deterioration over time. The laminating plastic is not acid-free, therefore it might react with the paper and make it yellow and brittle over time. This can decrease legibility and even render the document useless.

Thirdly, the glare that is created when laminating a paper might make it difficult to read or scan. This is a major issue, especially for routinely read or scanned papers like passports and identification cards.

Furthermore, it can be difficult to recycle documents that have been laminated. The plastic used in lamination is not biodegradable, therefore it can take a very long time to break down. This has the potential to add to landfill garbage and harm the environment.

In conclusion, laminating documents may seem like a good idea at first, but there are some drawbacks to laminating documents that should be taken into account. There are alternatives to laminating documents for long-term storage, such as using archival paper or digitizing the content. In this way, you can avoid the possible problems of lamination while still preserving your important documents for future use.