How to destroy/discard 35mm film negatives?

<p >I've scanned tens of thousands of family pictures from negatives to my computer. Now I'm stuck with a suitcase full of negatives and positives. What would be the easiest way to destroy the original film, I don't want to just throw it to trash can and risk that someone can take a possession of them. Cutting them with scissors is not practical due to the large number if film. Burning it may not work as I've heard that film doesn't burn and not sure of how toxic/smelly the fire would be if it did burn. Paper shredder probably also wouldn't work as most of the film is rolled up and I would have to tediously unroll each film and feed it to the shredder.</p>

<p >Mabye I could put them all in a large bucket and pour a "chemical" on them - not sure what chemical that would be and how enviromentally safe it would be?<br>

Any ideas?</p>

<p>Why not just stuff them in a box and forget about them? You never know, one day there may be a technology to make the images 3-D and you may need those negatives again...</p>

<p>First: how are you backing up the data from those scans? Do you have multiple copies, on more than one media?<br /><br />As for disposal: do you know someone with a fairly sturdy office shredder?</p>

<p>Wow! I would never consider destroying them ever! Your scanned copies might go *pffft* (or *poof* depending) and all you will have left are fading memories.</p>

<p>Put them into negative sleeves (or slide sleeves) and put them in a binder, put it on a shelf or where ever and pray you never need them again. But destroy them? Your slapping lady luck in the face if you do that. You'd increase the chanes of loosing the digital copies by at least a jillion% but Im no mathmatician..</p>

<p>Funny! I have always seen question regarding how to preserve not how to destroy never thought it is so difficult.<br>

As already recommended don't destroy it, it's an easy back-up.</p>

<p>You could run them through a shredder. Mine takes plastic and it's a home version I bought at Office Max.<br /> Once it's done, it's done. <br /> Have you thought of keeping the negs, just in case.</p>

I've GOT to chime in on this also. Why on heaven's Earth would you destroy the original negatives and slides? Digital technology is ever

changing. However you have the digital files saved now will likely be obsolete 20 years from now, plus as mentioned, even what you have

now could go "poof" at any time. To me it would be un-imaginable to destroy your REAL originals. DON'T DO IT.

<p>Dont even think of destroying them. How foolish. You may need them one day, or perhaps a relative will want them one day, or maybe even your kids. They are the originals, safegusrd them.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for your responses. I have actually a fairly robust backup. Two on-site copies and two off-site copies (different continent) plus many other copies shared with family members. Scanning the negatives was a nightmare and I don't think I would ever want to redo it, no matter what future holds. The scanning part was actually ok, but the post processing and cataloging was a lot of work. I don't think there will be a machine in the future to which I can just drop a suitcase of negatives and have it scan them, catalog them, post-process them, etc. It will be much easier to convert jpg or tiff to whatever future format is there than reprocess everything. Again these are family photos and not a great work of art worth of preserving for hypothetical future benefit. As of now it's just collecting dust and taking space, just like many more suitcases of VHS tapes and 8mm tapes that I'm in the process of converting to DV.<br>

As far as suggestions to my original question, so far it looks like the only idea is to get a more robust office shredder. I'll have to check them out.<br>

Thank you.</p>

<p>So, are these pictures of a grassy knoll, a desert sky with an odd shape in it, or of some northwestern hairy figure? Inquiring minds want to know.</p>

<p>If your hell bent to destroy them. Have some fun - burn the suckers.</p>

<p>I'm with Derek. No currently available digital storage medium will last as long as the negatives themselves. Keep them as a backstop. The worst thing that can happen is that you won't need them. Most people do not use gold CDs or DVDs. Over time, sometimes not very much time, air penetates the plastic in a CD/DVD. When it comes in contact with the aluminum you get aluminum oxide. At that point the CD/DVD is unreadable. It doesn't matter how robust your storage is. All digital storage is temporary. This includes having the same temporary storage located in different places. A young man at the local camera store once told me, with a straight face, that a DVD would last 50 years. I have b&w negatives which are much older than he is. I understand the convenience of digital storage. I just don't think its longevity should be oversold. </p>

<p>I have a few cd's that I burned in May of 2006 - one third of the images are no longer retrievable.</p>

<p>Just because you don't want them, doesn't mean some grandchild of yours won't want the originals because you used some incredibly poor 75 year old technology to scan the originals.</p>

<p> A few years ago I attended a conference at the Eastman House Museum on image archiving. The conference was aimed at museum curators. The panel agreed that the best way to preserve images is to:</p>

<p> </p>

<ol>

<li>scan everything</li>

<li>store multiple redundant copies on servers in geographically separate locations</li>

<li>endow the IT department in perpetuity</li>

</ol>

<p>They said that if you can't do all three, don't start because all digital collections will ultimately be lost if they are not actively managed. </p>

<p>When I was still at Kodak, I participated in an ad hoc group to develop recommendations for amateur photographers to store their images long term. Our conclusion was that to preserve images for future generations, they should be in human readable form (prints, negatives, and slides). Our findings were never published because they conflicted with the corporate strategy which urged everyone to "Send you pictures to the Kodak Gallery and we will keep them forever." Now that Kodak is reportedly seeking a buyer or partner for the Kodak Gallery, the "forever" promise seems doubtful.</p>

<p>My bottom line: While I have scanned many of my slides and negatives (and have uploaded most to the Kodak Gallery), I have never thrown out an original. </p>

 

<p>Sounds like the best way to lose the lot forever.</p>

Is this a joke? You want to destroy the originals? For Pete's sake just put them into a shoe box for your descendants to find. People pick up an old photo album and flip through the pages looking at the old photos. How many people years from no will flip through old CDs or DVSs and wonder what is on them, assuming they still have CD or DVD players.You look at a CD disk and what do you see? Nothing l Toss that into the trash along with Bug Battle.

<p>Further ramblings:</p>

<p>On another project at Kodak I had to prepare a waste stream analysis for one of the chemicals used in film. One chemical was retained in the film after processing while a potential replacement washed out in the developer. We found that we really didn't know what happens to film, especially negatives. We assumed that most would ultimately end up in land fills, but only after residing for years (if not decades) is shoeboxes or other storage containers. Many negatives are only tossed after the originator dies.</p>

<p>Thanks guys. I guess the thread is changing toward "reasons not to destroy negatives" - I'll play along as this is an interesting topic. I agree that there may be a reson to keep film for all the various reasons you all stated (future better technology, sentimental value, pass it to grandchildren...) , but in my case it's not a very good solution for emergency backup. In today's world, I'm dealing with a lot of data that's only in digital format - DSLR RAW files, AVCHD camcorders, downloaded music, etc. The amount of data from these devices far outnumbers anything I have in analog form (35mm film, VHS, etc). The reality is that I need to have a robust backup for all my data no matter what because most of my data does not have analog backup. My primary focus is therefore to have a robust digital backup. Another big problem for me is that with that much data, organization of the data is of a great importance. If I'm not able to tell which media is where, who is on which photo, locations, dates, etc, than I'm sure my grandchildren will not know. Cataloging analog media would be another huge project that I will not go through. It's much easier and more managable to have a digital catalog and robust backup.<br>

Your thoughts..?</p>

 

<p>Just to clarify, I'm not burning up my photo albums :) Just the negatives. Thanks to the scanning of my old negatives I was actually finally able to re-print photos that I've long lost or whose negative could not be found in the unorganized pile of negatives I had.</p>

<p>To repeat what others have said...the thought of destroying first generation information goes against any archival thinking. Your negatives may not have any great historical importance at this point for you, but let later generations of your family have access. My great grandparents had many photographs taken from over 100 years ago. The pictures have torn and faded and the negatives are long gone. I would give anything to have a chance to reprint those negatives now.<br>

Imagine you had some great old vinyl records back in the early 70's, but thought that recording them on an 8-track, then destroying the records, was a good idea. As least with records, they can still be purchased, if you have the money. An example...I can get a fresh LP of The Beatles 'White Album'...for $60.00!<br>

If you're still hell-bent on destruction, put them into a non-plastic bucket and pour in some acetone. Any paint store carries it. Be careful...VERY flammable!</p>

<p>In the future, your negatives will have value not only for your great-grandchildren but also for sociological studies and the like.</p>

<p>In the city where I live, the Historical Society collects all kind of photographic images donated by the public. Maybe they burn a great deal of them anyway... :-) </p>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=852928">Pavel Kupcik</a> , Feb 12, 2009; 02:00 p.m.</p>

 

<p> "It's much easier and more managable to have a digital catalog and robust backup.<br /> Your thoughts..?"<br>

Having been in the IT business for decades, a "robust backup" is a damned expensive thing to maintain, and the work involved only increases at a rate way higher than the addition rate of data. You have to recopy and verify the data frequently and you should have at least two copies stored in secure locations in different cities in different geographic zones hundreds of miles away.</p>

<p> </p>

 

<p>All but an handful of Matthew Brady's glass plates from the Civil War ended up as glazing for greenhouses. Ah, what the heck, Pavel, let's build a fire :-) We can bring some books to help stoke it - the old, smelly ones with yellow pages and leather bindings.</p>

 

<p>I think that even thinking about throwing out negs/slides is an absurd thought!!</p>