Chemical bottle Clean Up ??

[SteveKarr]

Hi everyone,
I inherited many photo chem. bottles in the sexy brown plastic. They are marked-up with tape as to what was once inside ... D-76, Fix, stop ... you know, The stuff.

So my question is with what do I clean and make ready these bottles for my use? Is there a cleaner or just hot water? Do I need to keep developers to developer bottles & so forth?

Hmmm ....

Steve

[domaz]

I usually just keep the same kind of chemicals in them as labeled. But if you can get them clean enough so that you don't see obvious stains and you can't smell any odor they are probably fine for just about anything (except food).

[jp]

I would suggest simple green first to try to remove the tape. If that fails, use something slightly abrasive like comet. For internal cleaning, there is a crystal product I don't remember the name of for cleaning coffee pots.

I have a darkroom, so I don't need brown bottles to keep the light out. I use juice and gatorade jugs instead and dispose of them when they are nasty.

[Bruce Douglas]

You can also try a product by the name of Goo Gone to remove tape residue. It is citrus based and does work. Just make sure to try it on the plastic first to make sure that it won't affect it. Goo Gone will remove tape residue as well as other sticky stuff.

Good Luck!

[Henry Ambrose]

Your developers will last longer in glass full to the top.
I've had people give me old plastic and mostly it gets recycled. But I'm real particular about how I keep darkroom chemicals.

[nolindan]

The standard laboratory cleaner is made from P. Dichromate and Sulfuric Acid - Kodak publishes the formula but about 5-10% of each is about right. Nasty stuff. At 0.5% this combination is a bleach for reversal processing.

For fixer residue you can try equi-molar S. Bicarb & S. Carb and EDTA, I've never tried it but it is what Kodak sells for cleaning processing machinery.

Note that you can spend an hour trying to clean out a $2 bottle - not really worth it.

[RickV]

To remove labels and the adhesive, I use eucalyptus oil. It hasn't degraded anything except the adhesive for me. Cleaning chemical residue scale I found a product called "Calcium Lime and Rust" (in Australia!) to be perfect. Follow the instructions and flush well after use.