hypo is already used in the swimming pool industry as a 'shock" to lower ph.
i'm not sure how healthy it is to swim in low concentrations of silver
( and whatever else ends up in fixer .. bromides, sulfides and iodides ? )
At the local land fill they have a "Hazo house" where you bring paint thinners, old pesticides, etc. to dispose of them. You just have to tell them what it is and they put it into the proper category for handling. They never bat an eye when I bring in gallon jugs of exhausted fixer.
I am collecting the used fixer in a 5l plastic bottle (from deionized water) properly labeled and then dispose it at local waste-management company. I need to do this about once a year so it is no big deal and mostly it even does not cost anything.
For printing, I generally leave it sitting in its tray until it all evaporates (using it all this time), and refill it when it gets too low to cover a piece of paper. The fans on whenever I'm in the darkroom and sometimes when some. Is this a problematic way to do it?
For printing, I generally leave it sitting in its tray until it all evaporates (using it all this time), and refill it when it gets too low to cover a piece of paper. The fans on whenever I'm in the darkroom and sometimes when some. Is this a problematic way to do it?
You will end up with highly concentrated silver in that tray and therefore poor print longevity. You're doing the opposite of two-bath fixing the aim is to have very low silver concentration in the second bath. You can't just avoid the disposal problem entirely.