Disposing of RC Prints

[Peter Lewin]

I'm finally cleaning up lots of boxes of old RC work prints. Does anyone know if you can recycle RC prints with used paper or magazines? Because of the RC coating I'm afraid they have to go to the landfill as opposed to recycling, but thought I'd ask the experts first!

[Andrew O'Neill]

All my work prints go into a bath. When all the silver seperates from the paper, I stack the paper in a pile outside. When the paper is dry I put it with the other recycable papers. There is quite a bit of sludge in the bath and eventually I will let the water evaporate leaving the sludge to dry. The sludge will then go to a disposal facility.

[paulr]

if they're recycleable ... paper or plastic?

[Ralph Barker]

I'd suggest talking to your recycle company to see if the procedure Andrew outlined will be acceptable to them. Some may not accept paper that has been exposed to water or other chemicals, as it may require special processing, or, from their perspective, "contaminate" the regular paper batch.

[Ed Richards]

Just dump them - they will not recycle very well, and will contribute very little to the land fill problem. Talking to your recycle company may be an option where Ralph is, but in many places you are lucky to get the date they will pick the stuff up.:-) I see you are in New Jersey - I bet you really have a fun group to deal with on garbage and recycling.

[Oren Grad]

I would not put RC paper into paper recycling without checking first with the recycling authority - the plastic layer makes it an entirely different beast.

[Vaughn]

A photo chemical recycler use to pay us 10 cents (US) a pound for photo paper (FB and RC) until the price of silver went too low to make it worth the dime. Now they pick it up for free and that reduces our local contribution to the waste stream.

Vaughn
Humboldt State University