Fixer Recycle/Recovery of Silver

[CMoore]

I read the sticky, but that is fairly old at this point. A search did not turn up a whole lot.
Is there a better way to deal with my old fixer than to take it to my local recycle place that takes oil-based paints and house-hold chemicals.?
Thank You

 

[removed account4]

hello cmoore:

i distribute silver recovery equipment, both electrolytic as well as trickle tanks.
the electrolytic unit is called a "silver magnet" the fixer has to be well spent ( more than 52 parts/million: clip test determines this )
it electroplates some of the silver out of your fixer, onto a cathode which is eventually mailed or brought to a refiner.
the ion-transfer is a iron core trickle tank+media bucket that slowly trades silver ions for iron ions. the fixer does not need to be well spent
and it can de-silver your wash water too. depending on the size you get and if you do pre-treatment ( with a magnet ) a trickle tank has a capacity
of 400 gallons of fluid or 2000 ... i also sell test strips to see what your silver content is pre-treatment ( if you don't like clip tests ) and post treatment
to see if your trickle tank is at the end of its life...

feel free to PM me if you would like more information or to purchase one.

good luck !
john

 

[Doremus Scudder]

I take my used fixer to a local photofinisher (one of the few left in my area that has an extensive film lab). I collect used fix in a container till I have 20 liters or so. They are happy to take it for silver recovery. I get rid of my used fixer responsibly; they get a bit of profit from the silver they recover. Win-win.

If that were not an option, I would either recover the silver myself before discarding the fix (provided it were easy enough and my volume were high enough) or just dump it down into the municipal sewer. Most communities allow small amounts of photochemicals from non-commercial uses to be disposed of that way. Check with your local authorities about this; California can be fairly strict.

I took used fixer to the local HazMat people for a while, but they were clueless. They had no idea of silver recovery nor even of basic photochemistry. They treated the used fix as if it were nerve gas or something and marked it for incineration.

FWIW, from what I understand, the silver compounds in fixer are quickly changed into stable silver sulfides in the sewer and are then non-toxic.

Best,

Doremus

 

[AgX]

I took used fixer to the local HazMat people for a while, but they were clueless. They had no idea of silver recovery nor even of basic photochemistry. They treated the used fix as if it were nerve gas or something and marked it for incineration.

In the EU there are regulated, different waste-codes for designating containers with developer, fixer, or bleach-fixer.

This should help here in the EU handling at collecting stations, but otherwise the knowledge about photographic waste is likely going to vanish with the vanishing of such processes...

 

[anfenglin]

I have Sodium Dithionite, I use that to desilver my fix, after decanting it I can pour the liquid part down the drain. I save the residue for late, I still have no idea what to do with it.