Disposal of chemicals

OK.... I realize that I have been out of photography for some years. And, I

assume that the way in which we treated our processing chemical in the "old

days" is probably not "politically correct" or acceptable. So, now that I am

returning to photography, I have a simple question.

How do you dispose of your processing chemicals? What is the accepted means

for doing so. I assume that it is not acceptable to just pour them down the

drain. When I read the MSDS's, all they say about disposal is to check the

local laws. The chemicals that I am talking about are your developers, stop

baths, fixers, bleach-fixers (for color), toners, reducers, enhancers, etc.

How should I dispose of them. Right now, it will just be smaller processing

batches. But, hopefully in the near future, it will be larger quantities.

Can you help me out here? I really don't want to do the wrong things here.

Charles A. Wimer

In low volumes, like less than a couple of dozen rolls a week, you probably won't cause any damage by dumping everything in the garden. When I was using a process where I could catch the solutions separately, I saved bleach (for reuse) and fixer (for silver recovery). According to Ron (our Kodak expert) other than the metallic silver in recovered fixer, the overall result of spent E-6 chemistry would be a mild fertilizer.

A friend of mine who moved her minilab out of a commercial space into her garage was told by our county enviro folks to just dump the effluent on the ground, and this is a county in which virtually all drinking water is pulled from wells. Before she moved into the garage, the local sewer operator had no problem with her dumping everything down the drain. In larger volumes they probably would have insisted on a silver recovery unit so the metal wasn't ending up in the sewage treatment system, but at the 50 rolls a day or so that she was running they didn't seem to care.

I do have some concern that the chemistry could interfere with the biological processes in the septic system, so I dump my spent chemistry on the ground. Doesn't seem to hurt the plants any, not sure if it's encouraging them to grow faster or not.

Please note, however, that I am not a degreed chemical engineer. Also, I haven't dumped this waste in the same place for any long length of time. Five years on the same rose bush could be harmful for all I know. I do know that the environmental control types mostly are worried about oxygen requirements in the sewer systems, not any real toxicity in the chemicals.

Van

Oeps, in the whole European Union you are obliged to collect it in the chemical container and bring it to the local collecting point. You're also not allowed to put them in the drain.

What you do not have to collect:

Stop (acetic acid or citric acid)

some Eco developers, based on ascorbic acid

Fix, bleach fix, toners (sepia, selenium) and all developers containing Metol, hydrochinon, pyro XXX you have to collect.

Heavy metals like silver/selenium is distroying the whole water manegement and water treatment which is used in Europe for making drinking water again.

Some chemical compounds in developers are very toxid also in smaller quantities.

Hopefully this helps.

Best regards,

Robert

In my small quantities I dehydrate spent chemicals in the garage and exentually take them to the dump where they go into a sealed landfill. Some specific toxic chems are to be taken to county toxic disposal when it opens this year. Another nearby county has had a facility for household chemicals for years (Monroe county New York - Rochester is in the county) and Kodak helped them setup and handle spent darkroom chemicals.

G.Armour Van Horn - I wouldn't discard chems in a vegtable garden even if they eventually degrade as the root systems will pick up some chems before slow soil, air , time reactions will take place. I am very surprised about a county envirmental dept that didn't care that 50 rolls a day mini-lab is dumping on the ground. Are you sure she didn't ask like ' I do photo processing in the garage - what do I do with the chems' resulting in their thinking a couple rolls a month? Robert Vonk is right about some of the older B&W chems being expecially toxic.

Charles,

You didn't say where you're located; and more importantly, you didn't say if you have city or well water, and septic tank or muni sewer.

First off, you should *not* be using "blix" (bleach-fix) combinations, especially for C-41 & E-6: They are shaky at best; and often are the cause of problems that end up here on the Photo.Net forums.

Instead, you should be aerating and replenishing your bleach(es), which is both more economical and more environmentally friendly... However, if you insist on using your bleach single-shot, just pour the stop bath into it and feed it to your rose bushes, since it's actually now Miracle-Gro.

[Kodak spent over a billion dollars reformulating all of their color chemistry to make them MUCH more environmentally friendly, even winning awards from the enviro-nazi groups.]

E-6 first dev is just a non-toxic B&W developer (not much more than a watered-down D-76 in terms of disposal), and can go right down the drain.

E-6 and C-41 color developers can also go straight to sewer, as can E-6 reversal and pre-bleach.

Fixers, in **small** quantities can go straight down the drain; however desilvering is actually easy: Just get a plastic pail or plastic coffee "can" and put some plain steel wool in it, and the silver from fixer (or bleach-fix) will self-plate on to it.

What I can't stress enough is that if you use replenished chemistry, you'll get three benefits:

1) Much lower cost per roll

2) Consistent batch-to-batch results

3) Much lower effluent volumes.

[Of course, many people use dilute B&W developers (such as D-76 1:1) single-shot, but the cost is low enough so that it's not an issue.]

It is very easy to dispose of this stuff. I would just call around to local labs and haz-mat collection sites. Stop can be dumped, fix can be turned in to have the silver pulled out and reused, and supposedly developer is safe to dump, but I collect it and take it in. I am leery of dumping the stuff into the ground, no matter what a chemist might say. You never know what may be discovered in the future. Remember DDT and Malathion? I take all my stuff to the local community college, and they gladly take it for me. A funnel and some 3 gal. water bottles with the handle sold serve you fine. All I do at home is b/w 35mm and 2-1/4. I rent a darkroom for 4X5, and I send my color or slide processing to a lab, and rent a darkrooom with a C-41 machine for color printing.

Keith