Poll: How do you dispose of your used fixer?

Who dumps their spent fixer down the drain, who tries to recover the silver with a steel

wool pad (an then do what with it) or who has alternate methods (such as taking the fixer

to a lab if they can find one?

I dump mine down the drain. Silver recovery is a waste of time for the average hobbyist.

When I had an in-studio lab, as limited as my production was back in the 90's, I was required by the County of Sonoma to store used fixer and dispose of it at periodic toxic cleanup events.

At least where I live (Berkeley, CA), the county hazardous waste facility is open for drop-offs by the public a couple days each month. I store my spent fixer in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, then cart the full bucket to the hazardous waste facility every so often.

 

The last time I went, the guys working there were all excited to get photochemicals. Apparently, they had heard that photochemicals put on some sort of pyrotechnic display when put in the incinerator. I didn't want to ruin their fun by telling them that waste fixer is mostly water...

 

-Jon

I pour the exhausted fixer into a disposable plastic jug and then shove in a few wads of steel wool, let it sit overnight, then pour the de-silvered fixer down the drain and throw the steel wool in the garbage.

as I'm on a septic system, I put EVERYTHING, including rinse water (I use the Ilford rinse method for film) in empty 1 gallon plastic water bottles (suitably labled with a sharpie).

 

I drop them off at a regional household waste center, no charge for non-commercial use.

Steel wool in two liter soda bottle. I decant the liquid, eventually the bottle and the steel wool will go in the household trash. Just keeping the silver out of the harbor, and the fish I might eat.

As I don't want the silver to end up in the ecosystem via the local dump, I take my used fixer to local community non-profit art school where I pour it in with their used fixer.

The only fixer I've used up is still sitting in a plastic bucket with some steel wool. I figure in about ten years I'll have enough of it to do something more with -- likely filter it off the silver sludge and spread it on the lawn.

I do the same in 1 gallon tanks (used bleach or household celaner tanks)

Then dump the liquid down the drain after a week or 2 and trash the plastic+stell wool

 

John Shriver Photo.net Patron, jul 21, 2005; 05:08 p.m.

Steel wool in two liter soda bottle. I decant the liquid, eventually the bottle and the steel wool will go in the household trash. Just keeping the silver out of the harbor, and the fish I might eat.

Most of the cities near San Francisco (like the earlier poster in Berkeley) have something like a blanket 1ppm on metals disposal down the sewer system.

 

I stockpile it for about a year (I'm a small user) and then run a silver recovery to clean it and pour it away. It isn't economic, but less trouble than moving 30 gallons to the hazardous waste disposal! And with the price of fuel on a 20 mile round trip the difference is not that great.

 

Selenium toner is cleaned a bit with some old fogged and developed paper, and then goes to hazardous waste. I would have thought that the incinerator would have masked the flame colours - http://webmineral.com/help/FlameTest.shtml - but one takes one's entertainment where one finds it, I suppose 8-)

I put it in jugs & wrap them in gift wrap & take them with me on the subway & then kind of wander a few seats away as we travel. They disappear every time.

<p>Wow - 8 years since the last comment here? Anyway, why seal up the liquid? Why not let the water in the fixer evaporate and dispose of the dry residue properly?</p>

<p>This question comes up often enough that old threads seldom get bumped.</p>

<p>When I last had a permanent darkroom my home was in a rural area with well water, septic tanks and some environmental regulations because we were on a lake front. While I developed film and printed several times a week I didn't produce enough waste from developer, fixer, etc., to cause any problems for our septic tanks. Our typical household use of cleaning supplies, food waste/residue and human waste put more of a burden on the septic tanks. We used Rid-X and similar products regularly to keep the septic tanks happy.</p>