No. Anything containing silver (used fixer) should NOT go down the drain. Save it and donate it to your local photo lab (if there is one); they will have a silver-recovery unit and should be happy to take it.
If you don't have a lab nearby, give it to your local (county?) hazardous-waste facility, clearly marked.
I treat used toners the same way; better safe than sorry.
there is a reason that municipalities will state on their websites that they charge extra fees and even charge permits for anyone doing "large volumes" of used photochemicals down the public sewer.
They will even be nice and give you monthly and yearly limits at which time you HAVE to file for a photo lab permit.
Just go digital, then. No fixer. Problem solved.
monochrome - industrial permits might apply to the handful of large labs which still exist, but a home darkroom is an entirely different situation. In this area, the hazardous effluent which goes from the typical electronics or biotech mfg film is probably in the order of tens of thousands of times all the photo labs in the region put together. I doubt they're even monitored. I wish meth labs were.
The last significant cases I knew about were the big Cibachrome labs because the bleach involved was strong sulfuric acid. The big machines used up to two hundred of gallons of it at a time, and even if partially neutralized afterwards, it could wreak havoc on drainage pipes over time. But hazmat permits were required in those cases. That was quite awhile back.
The EPA once mainly monitored the volume and disposal hospital XRay chemicals, which far exceeded any other photographic usage.
id have to find it again. but my searching in my local waste water website said that anything over a certain limit, i believe 30 gallons a year, required a permit from them.Originally Posted by Drew Wiley
Well... as someone said, just go digital. But that industry routinely pumps out effluent far more toxic, and vastly higher in volume, than anything photo related. Its an open dirty secret.
You can buy simple silver trapping buckets. I'm in an industrial city (thankfully, quite a distance from any actual heavy industry), and have a business permit here. Never an inspection. They're more worried about thousands of gallons of something very nasty getting accidentally released into the Bay, or a major oil spill. And if they want to go after home industries, they should start with the meth labs first - another open dirty little secret.
I used TF4 for years for film, and recently switch ed to TF5. I like the ease of use, and the short washing times.
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