Re-use stabilizer bottle

I used one of these compressible bottles for C-41 stabilizer. Want to now use it for B&W developer concentrate to keep as much air out as possible.
Would a thorough hot water rinse be OK?
Do I need to still worry about contaminating the developer?



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Those accordion bottles are are extremely difficult to clean properly. In addition, they rarely work as advertised, as they often allow air in.

I wouldn't risk my developer.

Like Matt said, they have a bad reputation. But, I have a black one that I bought from Freestyle, and it has been very effective for storing developer. The main thing is to make sure the cap is sealing properly. If you fill it w/ chemicals, smoosh it down, and find it has unaccordianed itself the next day, you have a problem. Cleaning it, well, that is a problem too. I run hot water in mine w/ dish washing soap and shake it like a banshee. Rinse, repeat, etc.

Any plastic container will retain some sort of chemical residue from absorption I would think, but would it be enough to make any difference? Considering the volume of chemical and what may be retained, I would think it's OK. Mine has been used for storing several types of developers, and it shows no signs of contaminating them. For fixer, I always use a dedicated container. I stressed over this sort of thing for a long time myself, even going to glass bottles and marbles at one point, which were a PITA. But reading that a lot of people just use regular old gallon water bottles for storing their chemicals made me decide that for the time periods I am storing stuff, there's no apparent problems.

My fixer is stored in one of those gallon brown bottles, also from Freestyle, and I squeeze it to keep air out of it. When I looked at the marking on the bottom, I noticed it has one of the less desirable ratings that is supposed to be not so good for storage. And yet I have a batch of Kodak Rapid Fixer in it that I mixed up way back in February. It always gets the old fixer dumped back into it, and what is in there now passes the clip test every time. I am going to throw it out and put a fresh batch in there soon because I am concerned about the silver content, but it has been great for storing fixer.

Usually these accordion bottles are made of polyethylene or polypropylene and these plastics are quite permeable to oxygen. The best choice would be glass followed by a PET plastic bottle. These are very often used for drinking water and soda and are essentially free. Check the recycle code to identify them.

They can be used for such solutions as stabilizer or stop baths. Due to the difficulty in cleaning them they should not be used for fixer.

The fallacy of these accordion bottles is that more oxygen passes through the walls than is present in the air space within them. Whoever came up with the original idea for them should be hung by their thumbs to contemplate the error of their ways.

Follow the advise . I found myself asking the same questions couple of years ago. Eventually I ended up using glass and PET plastic bottles for my chemicals . Those are the best options. I have now relinquished the accordion bottles to liquids that are not affected by oxygen. Developer will not last long in those, contrastingly I have a two litter soda bottle with C-41 Developer almost a year with no change of its original color.

My understanding is that C-41 stabilizer and photo-flo are likely to cause contamination issues. For that reason, I only use them in dedicated containers and don't get them into any of my tanks or reels.

I use 4L iced tea jugs to hold my developer solutions.