spent fixer ... the poll

[CBG]

One reason not to dump silver is that it's bacteria killing properties will help kill needed bacteria in your sewage treatment system. Whether you have your own septic field or dispose into an urban treatment facility, bacteria are a necessary, beneficial part of the process of rendering sewage harmless. Silver compromises that. Maybe not much with only what you or I, individually, add to the sewage, but when combined with all the various additions, from all the people adding to the sewage, the end result can be problematic. So, even if your neighbor disposes worse items innocently, maybe the message should be for everyone to begin to lessen the toxic items they dispose of.

That doesn't even get into the damages caused to other parts of the environment. I suspect much the same logic and similar answers would pertain.

Anyone who has read some of my posts knows I am far from a "chemical phobic". I cringe at the irrational fear of "chemicals" that some fear mongers spout. Regardless, it is not a good thing to ignore what research has learned about our environment.

 

[removed account4]

Option not offered. The local university (U Akron, Ohio) offers use of their silver recovery unit to community home darkrooms in an effort to help the community go green. How many home darkrooms are left that know about this? I have been using it since 2004. Two summers I needed to dump when classes were closed. I did not have access to this so I sealed five gallons of spent fixer in a bucket with steel wool. Two weeks later I spread the remainder over our fields. We have a well and septic system.

Coincidentally we now have giant dragons and crocagators roaming the fields and streams about us. They only come out in the night when it is dark and still and I have been into the sauce.

John Powers

that is great john!
schools, photolabs, household disposal days ... its all good..

i have heard that some of the stores that sell photochemistry
(in chicago i think it was ) ask ( or used to ask ) people to bring back
their spent chemicals for the store to dispose of them ...

there was a HUGE portrait studio near me that said if i wanted to, i
could bring my chems to them to deal with. they had a giant pressurized
evaporation unit, and used to sell their sludge to the company that installed
the recovery system ( itronics.com ) ... who in turn converted the sludge
into fertilizer.

unfortunately, they went out of business .. so i never got to
give my stuff to them ...

 

[Herzeleid]

oh the shame, the shame..

 

[johnnywalker]

I have a septic system, so don't want to dump it in there and kill the bacteria that makes it work. Instead, I dump it on the gravel driveway.

 

[psvensson]

The silver from spent fixer in a home darkroom doesn't present any substantial danger to municipal sewage systems, bacteria, fish, or the rest of the environment. Why? Because it meets organic sulfides in the sewers. They form silver sulfide, which is highly stable and insoluble, and therefore of little consequence to bacteria living things.

My source for this is an Ilford paper that I unfortunately don't have handy. But you can test the reaction by pouring Kodak Brown Toner into spent fixer: you'll immediately get a black sludge.

 

[Ektagraphic]

I really wish I didnt' have to click the option that a lab does it for me.

 

[Ian Grant]

I really wish I didnt' have to click the option that a lab does it for me.

Then get your finger out of your a*** and start doing your own processing it's very easy I started aged 10 or 11 maybe younger

Ian

 

[fotch]

For years (17+) everything went into my septic system. I did a fair amount of processing, both B&W and color. I am sure the older Kodak data said this was OK to do for home septic use. Maybe it was another source, anyway, when I sold the house, the septic was tested and it was fine.

However, since current info is don't dump in you septic, and I am still on a septic, I am going the route of removing the silver then maybe evaporate whats left, or take it to a near by city sewer plant and see if they will take it.

Hopefully this will also work for color.

 

[mrred]

Why? Silver is a great antiseptic. So great that hospitals are now using silver impregnated sheets and bed clothes to stop the spread of bugs like C-diff etc.

I guess I will have to start dunking my sheets in it....

 

[removed account4]

disappointing results so far

could be worse,
much worse ...

 

[zenrhino]

Whats the steel wool option? I don't think I've ever read that.

Luckily, our county here in Minneapolis has two Household Hazardous Waste sites that take fixer and do community drop-off events, as well.

 

[removed account4]

Whats the steel wool option? I don't think I've ever read that.

Luckily, our county here in Minneapolis has two Household Hazardous Waste sites that take fixer and do community drop-off events, as well.

hi zenrhino

you can do this not only with steel wool, but iron bits, copper flashing,
any metal i suppose that has a freely obtainable electron floating around
on its outter "shell" ... aluminium foil is one i never knew about, it is much cheaper than the other options!
the periodic table of elements would come in handy right now

basically what happens is that you run the spent fixer through the metal
and let it soak ... the silver plates out onto the metal and the metal used
(steel, iron, copper, aluminium) goes into the solution. it is an "ion exchange"
without the use of electricity. i used to use pieces of copper flashing
and shine them up, so all the electrons were exposed ( weren't taken up by
particles of anything ) and soak the fixer in that ...

a trickle tank uses this same "technology" ...
there is an iron or copper 'core' that the liquid goes through.
when it is done ( filled with silver ) the lid, with the core inside
is taken to the refiners. some trickle tanks are better than others.
i have one that is an iron core, which doesn't "canyon" and need to be in liquid all the time,
some of the other ones need to be wet all the time ( think brita filter ) to be useful.

i didn't know aluminium plated out silver without the other stuff mixed into it. THAT sounds like the perfect thing to use !
usually it is a black sludge that comes out of solution,
or that you need to scrape off of the copper flashing &C.
the black stuff is silver, but other chemicals too, so it would need to be refined a bit more.
( crucible and heat to burn it off ... i was told household bleach would do something similar, but i have never done it, so i don't know
if poison gas is given off )

the electrolytic ( ionic transfer ) machines use electric current to plate pure silver onto a cathode. the "silver magnet" that porter's camera store sells is a very inexpensive
electrolytic / ionic transfer machine ... i've never used or seen one
but from what i have read they do a pretty good job, and are very inexpensive.
they come with a little baggie / mailer to send it "away" and they send you a check in the mail ...

i used to sell the big electrolytic machines ( and evaporators ) ...
they weren't too inexpensive, but worked very well.
i remember seeing the "donut" of silver on the cathode and thinking it was pretty cool.

i wish i had the $$ back then to buy one of the machines i'd be rich now, seeing it is 21 years later, and i have used a ton of fixer since then

 

[Anon Ymous]

... i didn't know aluminium plated out silver without the other stuff mixed into it...

Neither did I, but tried it yesterday with aluminum foil. The reaction is slower compared to steel wool, but that's not a problem. An advantage of this method seems to be the purity of the produced silver. It won't have the tiny bits of steel wool, nor rust. Of course, I'm not a chemist and I don't have a way to perform chemical analysis. It just looks much cleaner.

 

[steven_e007]

I pour mine down the drain, but to be honest my usage is relatively small so I can't imagine I'm creating much of a problem.
I would suspect the bleach we chuck down the toilet or the detergent used for washing up several times a day is a much bigger environmental hazard.

This thread has made me think, though. Maybe I should be trying something else?

If you use aluminium or something.... what do you then do with the sludge?

 

[removed account4]

not sure what you would do with the sludge ..

i live in what used to be known as the costume jewelry capital of the world
and have a lot of scrap+electroplaters nearby that would probably take it .
maybe a look in the telephone book under electroplaters + refiners
or they might be able to point you in the right direction ...

 

[jp80874]

I have a septic system, so don't want to dump it in there and kill the bacteria that makes it work. Instead, I dump it on the gravel driveway.

We have two wells, one on either side of the driveway. Where is yours or do you have city water?

The fields where I have dumped maybe ten gallons of highly diluted fixer after two weeks with steel wool over two summers is down hill from the septic tank's leaching field. Trying to keep the bad stuff together. Down hill from that is a stream that I have heard in public environmental meetings is monitored by the EPA. We must be doing okay.

John Powers

 

[removed account4]

i have heard that with 2 trickle tanks in series you can pretty much remove
all detectable amounts of silver ... (maybe you pretty much did the same thing)

 

[Reinhold]

What to do with the sludge???

I use aluminum to precipitate the silver (much cleaner than steel wool) in a large wide mouth jug.

After stripping 5 or 10 gallons of fixer, I'll have a couple of inches of sludge in the bottom of the jug.

I'll refill the jug with fresh water, stir vigorously, and let it settle till the wate is clear. I do it 3 times.

After the 3rd time, I figure that most of the fixer is gone, so I let the sludge dry and keep it in a can.

At the moment I have about 2 pounds of it waiting for a silversmith/jeweler (trading stock: my silver for his artwork)

Reinhold

www.classicBWphoto.com

 

[Ian Grant]

You can get to below 5 ppm

Ian

 

[removed account4]

You can get to below 5 ppm

Ian

thanks ian!

 

[pgomena]

I can take my spent fixer to my pro photo lab for recycling. It's one of only a couple of pro labs still functioning in Portland (OR), so it's a convenient drop-off point.

Peter Gomena

 

[Ulrich Drolshagen]

I use none of the offered choices. I use Sodium Dithionite to precipitate the silver and then drain the rest.

Ulrich

 

[cknapp1961]

Isn't that why I pay a sewage bill? To get rid of refuse liquids and waste out of my home?...yes I drive an SUV, I heat my home to 72F in winger and cool my home to about 70F in the summer, I can afford it.

30 years ago they said an ice age was coming. I don't believe we are powerful enough to effect global climate, there are solar winds, solar flares, the fluctuation of magma under the earths crust driving plate tectonic movement and the Earths magnetism (which effects the ability of our atmosphere to deflect solar wind), frozen methane in the oceans just waiting to be released into the atmosphere, volcanic activity, etc., all of which must have a greater impact than us "mere mortals". If people really believed we were causing climate change in America they would be clamoring for nuclear power and a new automobile that runs on a totally renewable energy source instead of 120 year old combustion engine technology. But we have not built a nuclear power plant in 30 years because we lack the guts to do it. If he automobile industry innovated at the rate of the PC industry I could fly my car to the moon on a thimble full of salt by now. Also, look up the term "abiotic petroleum", hydrocarbons may not be as rare as we are led to believe.

 

[removed account4]

I use none of the offered choices. I use Sodium Dithionite to precipitate the silver and then drain the rest.

Ulrich

i've never heard of that method, it is great to learn about it.
is sodium dithionite one those things that is readily available?
how much do you have to put in ?

thanks ulrich!

 

[Christopher Walrath]

I one shot, occasional use. Maybe three or four sessions monthly (processing and enlarging combined) and, same as Andy, it's not as harsh as chlorine bleach so I don't give it a second thought.