How "Green" is developing?

[Trigeek]

Hello,
I would like to start shooting some film again (from digital) and was wondering how "green" developing your own film is. Where I live all of the waste poured down the drain goes to a septic field in the back yard which eventually gets into the aquifers and becomes drinking water again.
I do not know the chemistry of the developers / fixers... anything that I should be concerned about... any precautions I should follow?
Thanks in advance.
Jim

P.S. Would probably be developing B&W films.

 

[foto_fool]

Most (I say most, but not all) developers are not overly toxic - after all the poison is in the dose - and are comprised of chemicals that are more or less easily metabolized by bacteria. Fixers, too - but the problem is spent fixer, which has the highest concentration of silver in it by far of any of the solutions used in development. Silver is NOT metabolized and is toxic to bacteria.

Pro labs in most states are required to collect all waste for silver removal/recovery. About as green as you gan get at home is to collect your spent fixer in a plastic milk jug with steel wool stuffed in it. The iron in the steel wool precipitates the silver out of solution. You can decant the treated liquid down the drain - the iron salts are not considered toxic.

What to do with the precipitated silver? Unless you are developing A LOT, your environmental footprint is pretty small. Depending on how comitted to green principles you are, you might be able to rationalize sending your stuff to the landfill. Personally I like the science project aspect of collecting the precipitate, redissolving it in weak acid and refining it by eletrolytic deposition. There are lots of resources on the 'net to help you figure out what you want to do.

If you are planning to print as well as develop, stay away from selenium toner - no way would I put that in a septic system. Gold and copper toners too. I don't know enough about the chemistry of all the other toners out there to comment - what I don't understand I tend to avoid.

Septic systems present special challenges. I don't know how new your system is or how big your septic tank is. Septic tank flora don't like acid, so when you pour your spent and treated fixer down the drain make sure you run water to dilute it, or add some baking soda as it goes in the sink.

BTW a wash basin in the garage is the place to do all this treatment and disposal - spouses, children and pets generally don't care for the sulfide aromas that can be produced.

In perspective, your closthes- and dishwashing, your bathing, and all you household cleaning is putting more chemicals into your septic system than your film development will.

- John

 

[Trigeek]

Many thanks John. Very helpful.

 

[ocean7]

Great post John, thanks a lot!

 

[Bryce]

I'll agree with photo fool, and add-
I've been able to dispose of used fixer with a local one hour lab, where it gets recycled along with theirs.
Also, I use selenium toner and just save it to take to the hazardous waste dump when I've got enough to make it sensible.
The really troublesome part of this is that we don't have a really good source of information. The EPA just says that no photochemicals can be disposed of at any time through municipal sewers. Kodak says follow the law, and that all of their chemistry is biodegradable in aerobic sewer systems (read all municipal sewer systems). Wouldn't it be nice to get the facts?

 

[blw]

I don't really have much to add here since foto_fool said plenty to educate me as well as bolster anything I could offer.

One question to ask is how your local power provider makes electricity. If they're burning coal (like my local power co. is), you shouldn't have the slightest bit of apprehension pouring chemicals down the drain.

Now the bigger picture says that 2 wrongs don't make a right, and I very much agree with that; but the knowledge needs to be out there that "simple electricity" isn't as simple, clean, or green as any of us likes to think.

All that being said, I think I will strain my fixer through steel wool. Since my local landfill provides a household hazardous waste day twice a year where I could dispose of the steel wool then and there.

Thanks very much for the info foto_fool!

 

[literiter]

Thank you for this, John. I've been considering a darkroom for some time but worried about my toxic output.

I wonder how much total influence digital printing etc. would have on the enviroment. There must be an issue with the spent ink cartridges as well.

Does anyone have a take on this?

 

[foto_fool]

Bryce - regulations based on facts? Not in our lifetimes. Good call on recycling home developing waste with a local lab, though it is not always possible. I asked at our local one-hour in the drugstore and they said no. They pay to have their C-41 waste hauled away and resent every gallon.

blw - the steel wool is consumed in the reaction. The dark sludge that collects in your "fixer reactor" is actually a relatively impure silver. Since silver is trading at nearly $15 an ounce there are folks out there who make a living refining this material (look online; keywords "silver recycling").

literiter - a friend of my wife is an ink research chemist for HP and I have asked her exactly your kind of questions. The inks themselves are fairly innocuous - a fraction of a thumbprint compared to the environmental footprint of the paper we need to recycle. The chemistry to make the inks is really exotic, as is the manufacture of the packaging - apparently ink cartridge factories are closed-loop toxic systems similar to chip fabs (mostly closed-loop anyway). And again, the manufacture of the paper we print on likely has a greater environmental cost, even if it is 100% post consumer material - paper manufacture is NASTY!

Personally I always send my spent cartridges back in the little envelopes that come with the new ones. The cynic in me says it is only a feel-good exercise and that there are ships loaded to the top with containers full of these little envelopes sailing to Nigeria where they burn them in the open air. I do it anyway.

- John

 

[Freakscene]

Septic systems and the environment can happily take darkroom effluent with a little care. Small volumes are just fine - the bacterial colonies can handle them. If you use larger volumes or want to be very careful, you can do the following - avoid developers with hydroquinone; you can use Kodak Xtol for film and AGFA Neutol Plus or another ascorbate paper developer (some are described here: http://www.apug.org/forums/archive/i...p/t-10410.html)

Selenium toner should be used up (to complete exhaustion) and mixed with hypo clearing agent prior to discharge.

Used fixer poses a problem, because the silver in it is toxic to the bacteria and accumulates in the system. There is a lot of info about silver management at the Kodak website: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/dpq/site/...lverManagement but the easiest way to manage it is to precipitate the silver out of the used fixer with Na2O4S2 Sodium dithionite (aka sodium hydrosulfite or sodium hydrosulphite), a white crystalline powder with a weak sulfurous odor. This substance will precipitate the silver from the solution and separate it from the rest of the components, creating a benign liquid that can be poured into the septic system.

You do it like this: put the fixer into a canister and add the sodium dithionite, around two tablespoons per litre. Don't close the canister. Put it in a well-ventilated location at around room temperature, perhaps out on a balcony, as it will produce some sulphur dioxide which smells like rotten eggs. If it is really cold it will not work - or at least it will take a long time. The silver will fall out as a black sludge of colloid silver and silver sulfide to the bottom and some to the wall of the canister. After a week or so, pour off the excessive liquid and filter the rest through a coffee filter. The black stuff that remains in the filter and the canister is silver; dry the cake and collect it for further processing or disposal. The liquid can go into sewage or a septic system without any trouble.

Marty

 

[JoeV]

This question of environmental footprint reminds me of a discussion recently on a hybrid car forum. My input was that keeping one's old, used car, even if it is a 'gas hog', is more environmentally sound than purchasing any kind of new car, hybrid or otherwise. The reason is that there's an enormous environmental footprint to the manufacture of cars (steel production, plastics manufacturing, etc), plus the waste stream of cars post consumer usage.

Similarly, with photography, if you can keep a used film camera in operation, rather than buy a new camera, you are not supporting the environment footprint from the manufacture of new, disposable consumer electronics.

Yes, film manufacture (i.e. coating factories and chemical plants) have an environmental footprint; so, too, do semiconductor fabs, which are also supplied by chemical plants (and not just liquid chemicals, but many toxic gasses); but keeping a used camera in operation doesn't support the planned obsolescence of the technology treadmill.

Trigeek, you could try an instant-coffee based home-mixed developer (known generically as Caffeinol), and white vinegar for stop bath. Then, the only toxic chemical needing special disposal is your fixer; which, as indicated by others, you can extract most of the silver out of solution, prior to disposal.

~Joe

 

[GeneW]

I've read a couple of times that if you decant the liquid from the spent fixer after the silver has precipitated out and collected in the steel wool, that the leftover liquid is good fertilizer for your plants. Can anyone confirm?

Gene

 

[anselwannab]

To be perfectly frank, the only trully environmentally friendly thing to do is kill yourself. Everything else is just a degree of bad. Don't shoot youself, that uses lead. To be trully green, walk (flying and driving is bad) to the Arctic circle and let a polar bear eat you since they are starving.

Driving a Toyota Pius, buying carbon indulgences, and all that other stuff are a sign of non-commitment to the cause.