non toxic options

[Auer]

Not going to be much silver in Xtol 1+1 that's been used for a single roll per 300 ml. I probably wouldn't dump a whole liter of spent fixer down there (though that still represents only a few grams of silver, which will become insoluble silver sulfide pretty quickly), but a tank of Xtol now and then won't cause trouble.

I still wouldn't do it/don't do it.

Putting in a new septic is some expensive shit.

 

[Don_ih]

The easiest way to deal with fixer, if you don't want it down the drain, is pour it into an open 5-gallon bucket and let the water evaporate. It will take a long time to get a 5-gallon bucket worth of whatever's leftover.

 

[Auer]

The easiest way to deal with fixer, if you don't want it down the drain, is pour it into an open 5-gallon bucket and let the water evaporate. It will take a long time to get a 5-gallon bucket worth of whatever's leftover.

Where do you keep the bucket?
Probably ok for ppl that have a shed or something like that.
What if you kick the bucket?

 

[removed account4]

Where do you keep the bucket?
Probably ok for ppl that have a shed or something like that.
What if you kick the bucket?

back 30+ years ago I worked for a company that made and would sell "evaporation units"
it looked like a shop vac and it had a heating element underneath a thick plastic bag inside and a little fan
people were supposed to dump their tailings into the bucket and eventually it would evaporate to only solids
I remember talking to PE about this back in the day he kind of laughed and said those fumes were not good.

there are easy ways of dealing with photo chemistry if someone wants to deal ..
easiest way is to bring it to hazmat &c. they incinerate it / dispose of it the ways they do..
next easiest way is to bring it to a mini lab seeing they already have a disposal system in place, and make an arrangement
next easiest way is to get a 15 or 50gallon drum from a waste hauler and pay them whatever they charge to dispose of it
this will provide you with paperwork incase your big brother comes knocking and is interested
the next easiest way is do recovery yourself. there is start up costs ( units and test kits )
but its nothing compared to dealing with a messed up septic system and contaminated groundwater and water table, and
agents knocking on your door if it gets bad..
you'l hear all sorts of people claiming the whole thing is a racket, household chemicals are much worse &c
( not saying they aren't bad but they are legal to dump down the drain )
the local watchdog agency I had to be inspected by was only interested in fixer & wash water, they'd have people
fill their sink completely up with water and mix everything but the fix together to neutralize ( litmus will say if it is neutral )
the fix has the silver in it, and that's what they care about.

you'll also hear just mix your developer and fixer together and you can extract everything out of your fixer that way too
no clue how well that works, some claim well but everything is vague and no specific details about anything..
if I was worried about it ( and I usually am ) I'd figure out what the local laws say you have to do and go from there ..

 

[Donald Qualls]

you'll also hear just mix your developer and fixer together and you can extract everything out of your fixer that way too
no clue how well that works,

If you're using acid fixer, this isn't likely to recover any of the silver from the fixer, even into the form of sludge.

I have had exhausted fixer stored in a sealed, translucent bottle plate out bright silver onto the inner surface of the bottle, just from standing in the light, but the most effective low-tech method of removing the silver from that solution is to drop a couple wads of steel wool into the bucket; the silver will plate out (and most of the iron go into solution in its place), you filter the liquid off the sludge, and the liquid can now be evaporated (yes, some odor, but no worse than active fixer) and the residue disposed of more readily.

I'd have to look into the chemistry, but if you're into calligraphy as well as photography, it might be possible to convert the iron-bearing former fixer into some sort of ink...

 

[MattKing]

XTOL

pour-it-down-the-drain

Not if you have a septic.
Silver kills beneficial bacteria.

There really won't be any meaningful amount of silver in used ascorbate based developer. Developer changes the exposed silver halide to elemental silver that stays in the film or paper's emulsion. The rest of the silver halide gets dealt with later in the process. Your septic tank would be more vulnerable to a lot of the hand and other soaps.
Fixer is the one you need to be concerned with, although there is probably no concern about your septic if your volumes are small.

 

[Auer]

There really won't be any meaningful amount of silver in used ascorbate based developer. Developer changes the exposed silver halide to elemental silver that stays in the film or paper's emulsion. The rest of the silver halide gets dealt with later in the process. Your septic tank would be more vulnerable to a lot of the hand and other soaps.
Fixer is the one you need to be concerned with, although there is probably no concern about your septic if your volumes are small.

I still wont pur any Photo related chemicals down in to the septic.
Because I don't have to.
I wont go in to details, but we keep our cleaning/waste solutions as septic friendly as possible

 

[Wayne]

Not if you have a septic.
Silver kills beneficial bacteria.

There's no silver in xtol.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

If you're talking about developing film, then if you want to cut down on odor and irritating (not toxic) chemistry, you can use a water stop bath. Just run the stop 2x the time you would for an acid stop. I'd still use an acid stop for paper though.

 

[Pieter12]

Eco-pro chemicals from Digital Truth https://www.digitaltruth.com/products/ecopro.php