As I was taking the clothes from the terrace today, couple of plastic clips just broke when I tried to unclip them from the clothes line. But a bunch of wooden clips which were on were sturdier and showed no such issues. I realized that there was a fundamental difference between the two materials.

Plastic tends to loose its characteristic properties when exposed to sunlight. Prolonged exposure to sun and the resultant ultra violet rays makes the plastic brittle. And this is exactly what these devices get used to - Sunlight. When the are subjected to stress (clipping/unclipping) the weak spots give away and they break. Sometimes the plastic can break completely and leave the iron/steel spring to come in contact with your cloth. If they are corroded (rusted) they can stain the clothes and this is the last thing you want.

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Wood on the other end is very tolerant to temperature changes. Even repeated exposure to hot and cold weather has little effect on the wood. Hence wooden clips are a better choice for your clothes.

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There is another category of clips - metal. These are not so common these days as most of them get corroded and stain the clothes.