Water down the drain and a guilty conscience

mcarmo · Dec 3, 2023

Hello everyone!
I apologize in advance if I am posting this in the wrong place. Also, I apologize if this is something that has been previously discussed in these forums. I did try to search for something similar but didn’t find it.
It’s been quite a while since I last did any work in my darkroom. I managed to clean things up a bit recently, and I had a few rolls of film to process, so I got to it. And I feel like so much must have changed environmentally in the world in these years that I was away from this hobby, that I found myself with a guilty conscience as I was working.
It’s not like I wasn’t aware or already worried about these issues five or six years ago, but so much has happened all around the world due to the change in weather conditions. Portugal has been no exception, with increasingly hot summers, with new records for the hottest temperatures set every year and devastating forest fires.
So, I was processing these rolls of film, washing them after the fixer and watching all that water go down the drain and I was thinking “what am I doing?”
I miss enlarging my negatives. I have a few boxes left of Fiber based paper and that is the paper I love to use for my favourite negatives. But then I start thinking about all the water it will take to properly rinse those prints and there goes my conscience again.
I feel like this is the beginning of the end.
Is there anyone else out there having the same dilemma?

xkaes · Dec 3, 2023

There are lots of ways to reduce water usage drastically -- and it saves you time and money. Do you use a fixer remover (AKA, hypo clear) on your film and paper? There is no need to have running water on film or paper for extended periods of time -- although lots of people do it that way.

This topic belongs in the DARKOOM / PROCESSING -- and do a search for HYPO CLEAR

BrianShaw · Dec 3, 2023

Look into the Ilford wash method. Washes completely and uses little water. For film. Not sure if there is an equivalent for paper, though.

mshchem · Dec 3, 2023

mcarmo said:
Hello everyone!
I apologize in advance if I am posting this in the wrong place. Also, I apologize if this is something that has been previously discussed in these forums. I did try to search for something similar but didn’t find it.
It’s been quite a while since I last did any work in my darkroom. I managed to clean things up a bit recently, and I had a few rolls of film to process, so I got to it. And I feel like so much must have changed environmentally in the world in these years that I was away from this hobby, that I found myself with a guilty conscience as I was working.
It’s not like I wasn’t aware or already worried about these issues five or six years ago, but so much has happened all around the world due to the change in weather conditions. Portugal has been no exception, with increasingly hot summers, with new records for the hottest temperatures set every year and devastating forest fires.
So, I was processing these rolls of film, washing them after the fixer and watching all that water go down the drain and I was thinking “what am I doing?”
I miss enlarging my negatives. I have a few boxes left of Fiber based paper and that is the paper I love to use for my favourite negatives. But then I start thinking about all the water it will take to properly rinse those prints and there goes my conscience again.
I feel like this is the beginning of the end.
Is there anyone else out there having the same dilemma?

Use the wash water for watering plants, doing laundry, washing dishes. Running water washes really waste water. Portugal is a warm place, warm water is great for dissolving chemistry.

Another trick is to presoak your paper in a tray of water for 1 minute this will reduce the chemistry absorbed by the paper base.

MattKing · Dec 3, 2023

xkaes said:
This topic belongs in the DARKOOM / PROCESSING -- and do a search for HYPO CLEAR

Thread moved accordingly.
The advice above is generally good, but it is important to remember that the discussions respecting running water should be qualified in one major way. You don't need high volumes of running water. For example, for film, here is the Kodak recommendation:

A water flow that changes the water in a 1 litre tank in 5 minutes is barely a trickle.

Augustus Caesar · Dec 3, 2023

mcarmo said:
Hello everyone!
I apologize in advance if I am posting this in the wrong place. Also, I apologize if this is something that has been previously discussed in these forums. I did try to search for something similar but didn’t find it.
It’s been quite a while since I last did any work in my darkroom. I managed to clean things up a bit recently, and I had a few rolls of film to process, so I got to it. And I feel like so much must have changed environmentally in the world in these years that I was away from this hobby, that I found myself with a guilty conscience as I was working.
It’s not like I wasn’t aware or already worried about these issues five or six years ago, but so much has happened all around the world due to the change in weather conditions. Portugal has been no exception, with increasingly hot summers, with new records for the hottest temperatures set every year and devastating forest fires.
So, I was processing these rolls of film, washing them after the fixer and watching all that water go down the drain and I was thinking “what am I doing?”
I miss enlarging my negatives. I have a few boxes left of Fiber based paper and that is the paper I love to use for my favourite negatives. But then I start thinking about all the water it will take to properly rinse those prints and there goes my conscience again.
I feel like this is the beginning of the end.
Is there anyone else out there having the same dilemma?

Film does not require a long wash time, because very little fixer is absorbed by the plastic film base. Just immerse the film in water with Perma-Wash or similar product, drain, and repeat three or four times. The final time, do not use any wash-aid, but just add a few drops of wetting agent.This will use less than 3 liters of water!

titrisol · Dec 3, 2023

Use the 5 changes of water method (AGFA/ILFORD) at about 1.5L per 35mm roll is not much
If you want put that water in the tank of your toilet and use it in the next flush

MTGseattle · Dec 3, 2023

I imagine the biggest water wasting device a lot of us have used and/or encountered would be the Arkay drum style print washer. Get a number of prints in that thing, and the flow needed to rotate the drum was pretty high.

Did any of the archival print wash manufacturers publish their water requirements? I vaguely remember just a trickle coming out of the drain port was all that was advised in one community darkroom I used.

All that being said, one could try and minimize other water usage to offset the needs of photographic processes.

mcarmo · Dec 4, 2023

Thank you everyone, for your advice!

xkaes said:
Do you use a fixer remover (AKA, hypo clear) on your film and paper? (...)

This topic belongs in the DARKOOM / PROCESSING -- and do a search for HYPO CLEAR

I never have, no. Water wasting was really not as present in my mind back when I first started, and I imagine that, regarding film processing, given the choice between having to buy another chemical or just using water, I probably chose the second alternative at the time, so I have never used any and sincerely forgot that was an option. As to washing prints, I think I really never heard of there being a product that could be used for that. I always thought they had to be rinsed with water.
I'm definitely going to check out the Ilford products for rinsing film/prints, since that is the brand that is most available around here.

mshchem said:
Use the wash water for watering plants, doing laundry, washing dishes. Running water washes really waste water. Portugal is a warm place, warm water is great for dissolving chemistry.

This is really surprising to me! Never thought that the water that comes out of washing chemicals could be used for watering plants, I was positive that would kill them.

lecarp · Dec 4, 2023

Now that the film washing is sorted out. If you want to really make a positive environmental impact lobby to have all golf courses shut down in your country (and everywhere else).

mcarmo · Dec 4, 2023

lecarp said:
Now that the film washing is sorted out. If you want to really make a positive environmental impact lobby to have all golf courses shut down in your country (and everywhere else).

I love Patti Smith! And I love to sing "People have the Power" at the top of my lungs.
We've just had our government fall and early elections were scheduled after key government staff members have been indicted for being suspected of accepting bribes and looking the other way while environmental laws and protected areas were being violated. A government that was elected with vast majority by the people. So, yeah. I'm not feeling very confident on the Power that People have to lobby against whatever.

KerrKid · Dec 4, 2023

lecarp said:
Now that the film washing is sorted out. If you want to really make a positive environmental impact lobby to have all golf courses shut down in your country (and everywhere else).

Amen, brother. I remember George Carlin saying that golf courses were a waste of good farm land.

I'm blessed with two very good wells on the property including city service so water is not a big issue for me, but I still treat it like it is and am very conservative in my water usage. I think that is due to learning how precious water is when there isn't any.

ags2mikon · Dec 4, 2023

Our public golf course uses water from the sewage treatment plant. We have very green grass there by the way. That means that local photographers washing film and paper are watering the grass at the golf course. If they use perma wash than they are reducing and recycling at the same time. My dark room drains out to my trees so none is wasted.

mshchem · Dec 4, 2023

mcarmo said:
Thank you everyone, for your advice!

I never have, no. Water wasting was really not as present in my mind back when I first started, and I imagine that, regarding film processing, given the choice between having to buy another chemical or just using water, I probably chose the second alternative at the time, so I have never used any and sincerely forgot that was an option. As to washing prints, I think I really never heard of there being a product that could be used for that. I always thought they had to be rinsed with water.
I'm definitely going to check out the Ilford products for rinsing film/prints, since that is the brand that is most available around here.

This is really surprising to me! Never thought that the water that comes out of washing chemicals could be used for watering plants, I was positive that would kill them.

After a quick rinse there's mostly a matter of time for the chemicals to diffuse out of the emulsion. Might even come in handy

From the US National Institutes of Health

"The combination of sodium thiosulfate and sodium nitrite has been used in the United States since the 1930s as the primary antidote for cyanide intoxication."

bernard_L · Dec 5, 2023

As I already posted in some previous thread:
Film: Ilford method. Water consumption really minimal. A small fraction of a shower or a tolet flush.
Paper (FB, aka baryta). Washing requires two things:
- water in contact with paper should have a low concentration of hypo; "low" being relative to the current stage of washing of the paper
- agitation to promote exchange of hypo from paper to water
Excessive water usage comes from satisfying both requirements with a constant flow-through of water. We're speaking of gallons/minute during 1/2 or 1 hour... To save water they must be dissociated. How?

First a rinse (holding bath) and a DIY hypo clear: just sulfite; check web resources for adequate concentration.
I wash prints of a given size in a tray large enough that the prints can turn freely, i.e. smallest side larger than the paper diagonal. Fill with ~5cm (2in) water. Aquarium pump (suction pods) moves water and prints in circles. 10 min. Empty, refill with fresh water; repeat a third time. Test with Kodak HT-2 shows prints are OK by the end of 2nd wash, so 3rd is just for safety.

MattKing · Dec 5, 2023

bernard_L said:
Excessive water usage comes from satisfying both requirements with a constant flow-through of water. We're speaking of gallons/minute during 1/2 or 1 hour... To save water they must be dissociated. How?

We disagree a bit on this.
Constant flow does not have to mean gallons/minute - but you do need a solution that keeps the prints separated from each other.

bernard_L · Dec 5, 2023

MattKing said:
We disagree a bit on this.
Constant flow does not have to mean gallons/minute

Point taken; "gallons/minute" is quantitatively excessive and should be taken as poetic license. Maybe it's 0.1 gallon/minute, or whatever.
The point being that he flow rate needed to, by itself, agitate the print, is significantly larger than the one needed to carry away the hypo extracted from the prints.

npl · Dec 5, 2023

To add some numbers : assuming one roll of 35mm in a paterson tank, for film using the Ilford wash method* you'll only use 900ml of drinkable water.

Fibre-based papers will need quite a lot of water, so if you are concerned about that you can use modern RC papers like Ilford multigrade MG or foma fomaspeed. They only need 2min under running water or so, see the datasheets for details. As other suggested, you can use that water for your plants or something.

*fill the tank with 300ml water and invert 5 time, than dump it. Fill and invert 10 time, dump. Fill and invert 20 times, dump. Final rince with distilled or demineralised water and a wetting agent (https://www.ilfordphoto.com/beginners-guide-processing-film).

mshchem · Dec 5, 2023

I installed a magnet drive pump on my archival print washers. The plexiglass machines waste so much water when you use per instructions. Only for fiber prints obviously. Only requires 2 or 3 "drain and fill" cycles to get really archival wash.

You need to test with Se or the old Kodak test method. Again all the water that comes from an archival print washer can be used for plants, toilets, laundry etc etc.

Sirius Glass · Dec 5, 2023

bernard_L said:
As I already posted in some previous thread:
Film: Ilford method. Water consumption really minimal. A small fraction of a shower or a tolet flush.
Paper (FB, aka baryta). Washing requires two things:
- water in contact with paper should have a low concentration of hypo; "low" being relative to the current stage of washing of the paper
- agitation to promote exchange of hypo from paper to water
Excessive water usage comes from satisfying both requirements with a constant flow-through of water. We're speaking of gallons/minute during 1/2 or 1 hour... To save water they must be dissociated. How?

First a rinse (holding bath) and a DIY hypo clear: just sulfite; check web resources for adequate concentration.
I wash prints of a given size in a tray large enough that the prints can turn freely, i.e. smallest side larger than the paper diagonal. Fill with ~5cm (2in) water. Aquarium pump (suction pods) moves water and prints in circles. 10 min. Empty, refill with fresh water; repeat a third time. Test with Kodak HT-2 shows prints are OK by the end of 2nd wash, so 3rd is just for safety.

MattKing said:
We disagree a bit on this.
Constant flow does not have to mean gallons/minute - but you do need a solution that keeps the prints separated from each other.

I am in a drought prone areas and am careful about my water usage. For washing prints, when I use trays I had the water running but at a very low rate. That resulted in properly washed prints with minimal water flow. Now a use a print washer for 14"x16" [~40x46] prints with a very low water volume. There is not reason for the water to gush when the use of Hypo Clearing Agent and low water flow will properly wash the prints.

MattKing · Dec 5, 2023

I have a home-made print washer - two trays, with one over top of the other, staggered slightly, and with holes drilled in the end of both trays.
A trickle of flowing water into the top tray, which empties into the bottom tray, which empties into the sink.
The print start in the bottom tray, then are moved up to the top tray - 1 at a time - for the last part of the wash cycle.
If I did more work with fibre, I would add a middle tray.

pentaxuser · Dec 5, 2023

We appear to have satisfied the OP several posts ago How about starting a separate thread on the threat from golf courses? It won't further our photographic knowledge but it might be good entertaining knock-about stuff that will give the mods something to watch closely

pentaxuser

mcarmo · Dec 5, 2023

pentaxuser said:
We appear to have satisfied the OP several posts ago How about starting a separate thread on the threat from golf courses? It won't further our photographic knowledge but it might be good entertaining knock-about stuff that will give the mods something to watch closely

pentaxuser

There should be a "like" button on these post entries. Then one wouldn't need to post a reply just to say thank you for the advice or for the laughs!

Randy Stewart · Dec 5, 2023

A point or tip not mentioned to date. The "Ilford Method" and similar final wash programs to remove fixer from film using a fill and dump process depend on using a Non-Hardening fixer. For example, Kodak Rapid Fixer comes (came?) with the basic fixer and the hardener in separate bottles. You could use it either way. If you use the Ilford wash process to remove a hardening fixer, the wash will fail to meet minimum fixer removed standards and leave your film contaminated. Using a sodium sulfite bath before washing will expedite fixer removal. Using a hypo eliminator solution will work more efficiently still, but commercial products are fairly expensive. (more than the cost of water saved.)

MattKing · Dec 5, 2023

mcarmo said:
There should be a "like" button on these post entries. Then one wouldn't need to post a reply just to say thank you for the advice or for the laughs!

That is exactly why we don't have a "like" button in the forums.

Water down the drain and a guilty conscience

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