Moving to a rural area, how to get rid of chemicals?

[jp]

sea water is like perma wash ..

They both have lotsa stuff suspended in it.

[Michael Graves]

I drink the run-off from Kodak, over a million of us do, and we're all just fine....

If you're only generating a few gallons from few sessions in a temporary rental house darkroom... I wouldn't worry about it.

Frank, I've been following your posts now for going on five years. Do me one favor here.


Define "fine".

[Frank Petronio]

I used to know a Nuclear Physicist at the U of R who spent a year studying in France; he said they used to wash their radioactive residues down the sink -- the same stuff we store in underground Salt caverns for thousands of years.

Are you suggesting the French aren't "fine" either?

[Tom Monego]

Depends on how much darkroom work you are doing, if you are working a couple of hours a day and exhaust your fix, then I may think about a holding tank. If you are developing a 10 or so sheets of film a week, dump your fixer after a couple of sessions, I wouldn't worry about it. As the earlier poster said many house hold chemicals are far worse. I was putting in a septic system in a house and I knew the town environmental control office and he was fine with my photography as long as I kept it to b&w. He actually told me to increase the size because of the water volume not the chemicals. One caveat, if the septic system is old and cranky and you have to worry about the type of TP you use, or the landlord spends an hour explaining how to use water, then you may want to consider having a service take away the chemistry.
One way to save water is to use full water changes rather than running water, fix, 2 water changes, a fixer remover (Kodak, Sprint) then at least 7 changes, water should be in the tank for 30 seconds before another change. Used to process like this when I had a cess pool with a 180 year old house, where I installed the septic system.
I wouldn't worry about it.

Tom

[Jim Ewins]

If your body takes up too much selenium you die. If there is no selenium in the soil your vegs grow in you will not live too long. be responsible and disperse it broadly.

[jnantz]

They both have lotsa stuff suspended in it.

sea water and perma wash have a TON of sodium sulfite in them.

[Heroique]

I live where environmental radicalism is thick in the air, but that’s not exactly what got me hooked on using TMax RS developer as a replenishing developer (as opposed to a one-shot developer) – a process that can give the environment a break. What got me hooked was the silky smoothness, rich tonality, and agreeable results when I use it to process TMax-100 film. What I’m less sure about? Whether disposing a little TMax RS is even worse than disposing a greater volume of D-76, or HC-110, etc. (BTW, I suspect the average age here means that most of us learned “reduce, reuse, recycle” from our children, not our teachers.)

[sultanofcognac]

I used to know a Nuclear Physicist at the U of R who spent a year studying in France; he said they used to wash their radioactive residues down the sink -- the same stuff we store in underground Salt caverns for thousands of years.

Are you suggesting the French aren't "fine" either?

I live in rural France, therefore won't respond to that comment

I'll go back to playing banjo with my neighbour on the porch!

Johnny

[domaz]

If your body takes up too much selenium you die. If there is no selenium in the soil your vegs grow in you will not live too long. be responsible and disperse it broadly.

A little bit of selenium does you good apparently. At least that's what the vitamin companies want us to think. Do you think I could grind up the pills and make some toner?