Introduction

Which Packaging Material?

Which of these would you choose to package a sample of hair that you have collected from a crime scene?

  1. small plastic zip-top bag
    A small plastic zip-top bag.
  2. small paper envelope
    A small stack of paper envelopes.
  3. small plastic container with a lid
    A transparent plastic jar with a screw lid.

Answer: b. small paper envelope. Biological materials tend to degrade faster in plastic than in paper containers.

In this lesson, you will learn the proper way to package various types of evidence so that they are as close to their original conditional as possible when they reach the lab for analysis.