E6 chemistry mixing and disposal

Hi there,
Once E6 chemistry is exhausted is it safe to mix 1st developer with colour developer and the blix into one large container or must one keep them separate?
Are they safe to pour down the drain, e.g., the Arista 1L kit?
Thank You

PhotoBob said:

Are they safe to pour down the drain, e.g., the Arista 1L kit?

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Depends on what you call "safe", but it isn't necessarily environmentally friendly.
And yes, you can mix the blix with the developers, but you'll still have to figure out proper disposal.

Those who have a recycling service handling such waste should inquire whether to keep the baths apart, as silverrecycling works better so.
Here in Europe there are three (standardized coded) categories that apply for our photographic waste:
developer, fixer, bleach and blix.

PhotoBob said:

Hi there,
Once E6 chemistry is exhausted is it safe to mix 1st developer with colour developer and the blix into one large container or must one keep them separate?
Are they safe to pour down the drain, e.g., the Arista 1L kit?
Thank You

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If you’re in the US, you can inquire your local municipality about hazardous waste drop offs, and they’ll dispose of it for you, usually for nearly free in small quantities. If you have enough of it, SafetyKleen should be able to handle it. That’s what I use. I have a bleach/fix waste tank, and when it gets full, they come pick it up and drop off an empty one. It’s a couple hundred dollars (this might vary depending on where you’re at) but if you generate a fair amount, it’s worth it.

For developer and stop, my city water service let’s me dump it down the drain, but I have to keep a record of frequency and volume, and they do an on-site inspection every six months. You also have to be in an area zoned for industrial waste.

Just a question here - How great is the difference between commonly used hair dyes and bleach vs those used in E6?

What are the active ingredients? Cd3 and ferric ammonium edta. No heavy metals. Not necessarily more corrosive than bleach that gets used in laundry or drain cleaners.

The solution to pollution is dilution. I am not saying be a douchebag and dump anything down the drain, but compared to what's already being dumped down the drain is it really that bad or are we getting worked up over nothing? Why not neutralize the bleach and flush it?? Also, since there are so few of us using these chemicals, is there even enough to be noticeable? Compared to things like antifreeze and gasoline and oil based products that wash off the roads into sewage, it seems immeasurably smaller. What are these chemical disposal companies actually doing with the chemicals than charging money to document that it is not so bad and dumping it down the drain just as you might?

Bleach by itself generally isn’t the bad part, it’s the fixer, because it has dissolved silver in it which will wreak all kinds of havoc, even if you dilute the daylights out of it. Not only that, but you’re being somewhat naive when it comes to a commercial operation. For example, I’m required to account for where everything went that came through my water meter and to account for what went down my drain that didn’t come through the water meter. The city knows when you did something you’re not supposed to do because the numbers won’t match up and they monitor the drain so they know when you dumped something you’re not supposed to. This is why they zone. It lets them group potential offenders so all that waste flows through one shared collection point that they monitor. Somebody does something dumb, they go an audit the potential emitters.

All that being said, the OP mentioned the Arista E6 kit, which is a combined bleach fix. In that instance, he can’t get rid of the bleach without also getting rid of the fixer.

What sorts of problems could dissolved silver cause if poured down the drain?

It's a pretty potent biocide. The first thing that comes to mind is that it would interfere with the sewage treatment process - although domestic quantities would never be enough to make much of a difference. However, it accumulates and will impact aquatic life. Obviously, dumping any of these chemicals down the drain is a suboptimal "solution", even if many of us likely practice it.

1kgcoffee said:

What sorts of problems could dissolved silver cause if poured down the drain?

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What @koraks said. Silver is a pretty potent anti-microbial agent and relatively toxic in dissolved form. I don’t know of a single municipality that knowingly allows that to go down the drain without some sort of treatment to remove the silver. When I applied for my permits, that was actually something that they explicitly asked me about, and made it very clear that anything that had dissolved silver in it had to be captured and disposed of through SafetyKleen.

1kgcoffee said:

Just a question here - How great is the difference between commonly used hair dyes and bleach vs those used in E6?

What are the active ingredients? Cd3 and ferric ammonium edta. No heavy metals. Not necessarily more corrosive than bleach that gets used in laundry or drain cleaners.

The solution to pollution is dilution. I am not saying be a douchebag and dump anything down the drain, but compared to what's already being dumped down the drain is it really that bad or are we getting worked up over nothing? Why not neutralize the bleach and flush it?? Also, since there are so few of us using these chemicals, is there even enough to be noticeable? Compared to things like antifreeze and gasoline and oil based products that wash off the roads into sewage, it seems immeasurably smaller. What are these chemical disposal companies actually doing with the chemicals than charging money to document that it is not so bad and dumping it down the drain just as you might?

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+ 10^1000000

Adrian Bacon said:

...it’s the fixer, because it has dissolved silver in it which will wreak all kinds of havoc, even if you dilute the daylights out of it. ....

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I did the calculation once and IIRC it would take more than ten years for me to accumulate one ounce of sliver, and I do on average two rolls a week. You would flush more silver down the drain after polishing the silverware.