Soft Touch Surfaces going 'tacky'

Yes, I caught a remote control that was *just* on the turn a week or two ago ... used a wooden cocktail stick to scrape the finger grease out of the crevices then rubbed it down with a couple of alcohol wipes, which seems to have brought it back.

It has :-)

No, it's called 'reversion' and it's the barely-solid plastic breaking down into somewhat-more-liquid.

Supposedly heat, UV and oil make it degrade faster, but it'll still degrade. Some plastics also degrade if they aren't used (eg soles of shoes fall apart in the cupboard, but not if you wear them) - not sure if that's relevant here.

Best you can do is put something on the surface to stop it feeling tacky - talc is one suggestion.

Theo

That's what I use. It seems to work.

Don't make them out of bioplastics or biodegradable plastics, The problem is the ecoloons have made plastic their latest bête noire so manufacturers are making plastics with built in obsolescence.

The problem may be worse now but it's not new throughout in my lifetime.

It seems to be a problem on remote controls where they seem to put a soft touch plastic coating over a hard plastic shell. I've had the soft coating turn sticky in a couple of years but then having removed it the underlying plastic has remained stable for 10+ years.

I'd suggest that the quality/nature of the coating makes a difference. Power tools that have the coating seem to remain intact after years of use/abuse.