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

[sully75]

Hi there,

Just got a job...I may be renting a beautiful house on the coast from a nice lady for a low but still-too-high for me price. But anyway...

I'm guessing the house has a septic system. From my searches here, I'm thinking that I will collect all the chemicals I use in 5 gallon jugs or something like that, but not be concerned about the wash water going down the drain. Does that sound like a plan?

I know the water around here needs a lot of filtering. I hope it's not total crap. Darn. Hadn't thought of that.

Thanks
Paul

[Michael Graves]

Go to Home Depot and get one of those reverse osmosis setups for one of your sinks. I bought one for mixing chemicals and they're great. They state that they do 10+ gallons per day. We feed my wife's aquarium with it and I mix all my chemistry with it. I've never had it run out on me. You can also pick up a silver recovery unit to keep the heavy metals out of the soil. Selenium toner is a different issue, but as one person pointed out, it lasts forever, so just don't dump it. The tiny bit that washes off the prints will be insignificant.

[bobwysiwyg]

Check out these varied comments.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=10238&highlight=septic

There was another thread on this topic as well, just search on the term "septic"

[Sevo]

You may want to collect the first rinse after fixing as well - silver is environmentally fairly harmless on a big scale as it does not exist in soluble form for long, but on a small scale, even traces might foul up your septic system. For many colour processes there are regenerative silver recovery systems (essentially a iron wool filter cartridge with a pump to hook it up to the tank, where you'd only mail in the cartridge), but black and white fixers do get destroyed as a whole in silver recovery - in small to medium amounts is is less hassle to have this done, or you'll only increase the amount of water not disposable into the septic system.

Some black and white developers are biodegradable or self-decomposing with a short half life, and may be disposed of in septic systems after neutralizing them - check the MSDS.

Sevo

[neil poulsen]

It may depend on local regulations.

I checked this out many years ago in Pollock Pines, Ca with a city official who was responsible for water treatment. I had a septic system in that house, and this official suggested that these chemicals might even to the system some good. He pointed out that it probably wouldn't be any worse than all the other chemicals that get dumped, like bleach, detergents, etc. I also checked this out with Kodak.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about dumping normal chemicals. (e.g. used developer, stop, unused fixer) I would definitely not dump spent fixer and selenium toner. See if you can find a disposal place that would accept spent fixer and selenium toner. For example, Portland, Oregon has a place that's subsidized for small amounts of discard.

Do you do alternative process, for example, that might include using DiChromates? I wouldn't put any of these down any drain.

CONGRATULATIONS on the new job!

[Frank Petronio]

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.

[PViapiano]

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

The fact that you think you're fine worries me. I've read your posts. Seen your pictures.

[Tori Nelson]

The fact that you think you're fine worries me. I've read your posts. Seen your pictures.

LMAO Paul!

[R Shaffer]

I am on septic and in a coastal community and I take all of my used chemicals to the local household hazardous waste. However I have been getting some grief lately as one of the employees takes all my waste developer, fixer, bleach and toners. But the other guy now refuses to take anything but fixer and toners.

So I have a few gallons of waste developer and bleach and I am hoping the right guy is there next time I show up.

Here are Kodaks Guidelines for Amateur Photographers ( if the link works )

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/documents/05/0900688a800f8105/J300ENG.pdf

They seem reasonable to me.

[jnantz]

waste haulers don't cost too much for carting away spent fixer
you can desilver fixer and wash water by making a home made trickle tank
or electrolytic unit or buy them -- they aren't too expensive to purchase.
you can also desilver your fixer + wash by making a super saturated salt solution
and pouring it into your wash+spent fix ..
maybe being on the coast you can get sea water and add MORE salt to it
sea water is like perma wash ..
with the home made trickle tank & C you have to filter out the
sludge and dispose of that ...

if you are worried about your tailings, you could get a baseline for your water
before you do anything, and another one after you do these processes to see which one gets the most silver out
and is the least painful ..

water tests aren't too expensive ...

[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 :p

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 (http://www.luckyvitamin.com/p-4233-now-foods-selenium-yeast-free-vegetarian-100-mcg-250-tablets) 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?