Disposal of Brown Toner

[drpsilver]

02 June 2007

I usually tone with selenium and hold any used toner for disposal when the county has its annual hazmat drop-off day. However, yesterday I did some toning with Kodak's Brown Toner as part of my exploration of different toners. How do I best dispose of the used brown toner?

Regards,
Darwin

 

[nworth]

I don't know what your local rules are, so there may be some local restrictions. Kodak Brown Toner is supposed to be quite similar to T-8, which is a polysulfide (liver of sulfur) toner. While moderately toxic, this stuff can usually be disposed of in sanitary sewers with a good flushing of water. The sulfide reacts quickly with any number of things to become innocuous.

 

[john_s]

No shortage of sulfides in the sewer system! The other ingredients are just alkaline salts, I think, making them much the same as many household cleaning products.

 

[Monophoto]

I usually tone with selenium and hold any used toner for disposal when the county has its annual hazmat drop-off day.

This is probably overkill. Selenium toner is fairly innocuous (although I don't suggest drinking it.). And as it is used, the selenium content is depleted, and it becomes progressively less toxic.

I have read that if you have a few rose bushes, dumping the depleted toner around them is a great means of disposal. It's actually supposed to be good for roses.

As to brown toner, the concentrate is packaged in 16 ounce bottles. A typical working solution involves one ounce of the concentrate in a quart or so of water. And since we are at the bottom of a hill, we have a grinder pump that requires that there be a minimum quantity of waste in the reservoir before it is actually released from the house. Practically, that means that the toner working solution will be diluted with at least a couple of gallons of water or other waste.

Our house is fairly new, with toilets that require 1.3 gallons of water per flush. So flushing a toilet puts five times as much liquid into the waste stream as would be involved in dumping one batch of toner working solution.

So based on the dilutions involved, I don't believe that disposal of depleted toner into the normal household waste stream is harmful.

 

[Ian Grant]

The only difference between you disposing down the foul sewer and a waste disposal company is the company has a license. The volumes your talking about are are irrelevant.

I worked for a company in precious metal recycling and we specialised in Xray film (silver recovery) and associated chemicals. Our license was based on any abnormal load we would make at the sewage treatment works.

Most households are disposing far more worrying chemicals routinely.

So just dilute, and get on with something else.

Ian

 

[drpsilver]

02 June 2007

Thanks to all for your input. I was not sure how to dispose of this stuff. I figured that asking then dumping was better then dumping then asking.

I may follow-up in Louie's suggestion about selenium and roses.

Regards,
Darwin

 

[psvensson]

For a fun experiment, combine your used fix and the used sulfide toner! Silver sulfide will precipitate as black silt.