Plastic bottles for photo chemicals

[John Kasaian]

I need 2 of them in 16 oz size. There is currently nothing that small in my stash of scrounged whiskey, vino, and pharacutical bottles. I do have a Delta "data-tainer" but there is only one and it's a 32 ouncer I went to both a local camera store and also looked on line and the 16 oz Delta plastic bottles are $1.99 on line and $1.89 locally.
A wee bit steep for an empty bottle (albeit one that you can write on)
My 32 ouncer has a triangle on the bottom with a "2" inside. For the fun of it I went to Wal-mart and found 16 oz. brown plastic bottles of hydrogen peroxide and on the bottom is the same triangle with a "2" inside.
Oh yeah, and they cost .69 cents each.
I figuring that I can make my own labels for far less than $1.30!
Aside from having to find a use for 32 ounces of hydrogen peroxide, is there any reason why these wouldn't work?

[Louie Powell]

"Aside from having to find a use for 32 ounces of hydrogen peroxide, is there any reason why these wouldn't work?"

Nope - and because they contain hydrogen peroxide, they are very easy to wash out - just rinse in water.

[Eric Woodbury]

No reason. Store hydrogen peroxide is only a few percent. The rest is water.

You might be able to get something at the recycle center for 5 cents. There are some nice fruit juice bottles out there, too, but the juice is expensive compared to H2O2.

[Bill Kumpf]

Bruce Barlow, in his Fine Focus workshop, recommends Coke bottles. I have used the 16 and 20 sizes now for paper developer for over a year and they work fine.

Check pass posts by Burce for information.

[Nathan Potter]

$.69 with the H202 inside!? That would be very cheap. What kind of plastic is it and is the wall very thin? I don't like plastic but that's just an unfounded fear. I kind of thought that if the wall is very thin some developers will oxidize more quickly. I'm also not sure about dissolution of the plastisizer solvent into the darkroom chemistry - especially in the case of PVC and vinyl chloride. OTOH I have used Nalgene polyethylene wide mouth bottles with nasty Ilfochrome chemistry with apparently no ill effect. Maybe I'm just too paranoid.

What do others think?

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[erie patsellis]

Well to each his own, I prefer 1 liter flavored carbonated drinking water bottles (2/$1 at wally world), not only do I consume the contents, but I also get 1L bottles for free...

[CG]

If you are going to store developer, I have read it is best to use PET (polyethylene terephthalate). It evidently has low permeability to oxygen. You should be able to identify it by a "1" in the triangle on the bottom. I have seen PET mineral/vitamin water bottles with a largish cap that I have started saving for my darkroom.

PET or HDPE are said to work well with most other darkroom chemicals. HDPE has a "2" in the triangle.

Best,

C

[Jim Ewins]

If you just want storage use a plastic water or soda pop bottle. If shelf life is important use a brown glass bottle filled to the top.

[Hector.Navarro]

I have used PET water bottles for developer without problems and there is a plus: you can squeeze them out of air!
BTW: I stored the bottles inside a container to keep them out of the light.

[jwaddison]

I notice that one of my Ilford paper developer plastic bottles is HDPE and a number 2 in the triangle, as are the plastic bottles I got from Photographers Formulary which contained parts A and B of Pyrocat HD. So these bottles should be safe to store say, ID-11 (question)