rxmd
May contain traces of nut
True. I guess after reading the kind of statement I quoted in a number of other places I began to read it into Roger's statement as well. A clear case of reading more into it than what was actually there. I apologise.
bmattock
Veteran
Colloidal silver can make you turn blue. Talk about smurfs!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argyria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloidal_silver
Regardless of what morons think it does for you, I'm not drinking any.
rxmd
May contain traces of nut
Apart from Bill's links on argyria, people buy silver solutions because of their antibacterial properties. This is exactly the reason why they're bad for the bacteria in the sewage plant (and why they may not be so healthy after all).
mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
Mine is, indeed, subject to yearly saftey inspections. Brakes, suspension, tyres etc. are completely safe - at any speed it can realistically achieve. It's just not very pretty, it really is held together (on the "cosmetic" bits) by duct tape, and it does rattle more than a little as it gets about. After pink slip, green slip (plus 3rd-party property), NRMA membership and whatever work is needed anually my "free" car costs about AUD$1,600/year before I've driven it a kilometer.
Nonetheless, I could drive a nice new(ish) car or I can afford most of the photography gear I have. I get far more enjoyment from the latter. When the Saab can't get me where I want to take photos, I go hire a "real" car.
...Mike
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mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
rxmd
May contain traces of nut
sepiareverb
genius and moron
And again, it's a matter of degrees. Alcohol is toxic in large doses, yet how many of us happily guzzle that down every day?
amateriat
We're all light!
kywong
Established
Wow okay I didn't expect so many replies already. Got told off right off the bat too, thanks for that. I guess I wasn't clear enough that my "fair bit of research" was not specifically about pouring stuff down the drain, but rather, the developing process. It didn't occur to me that pouring stuff down the drain is an issue until I was told in three different videos not to pour the fixer down the drain, but developer and stop would be okay, so I just took that information and didn't look into it any further. It wasn't until I was told by the guy at the shop not to did I start wondering if I should.
I did google it, forgive me for that it wasn't an exhaustive research, normally 10 minutes would do the trick for most one lined questions, but I guess I misjudged the complexity of the question. Yes, I should've searched the forum too, but I didn't, partly cos' I thought anything here would pop up in google, partly cos' I thought it was a straightforward question. This is only the first time I started a thread rather than spend a fair bit of time to do my own research, do I have to be so cautious around here?
Really, thanks for the helpful information, I'll veer on the cautious side and not dump it down the drain, but there is no need to be hostile yes?
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bmattock
Veteran
Yes, there is no need to be hostile. I'm not. People just think I am. I keep forgetting to make smiley face emoticons at the end of my sentences.
Sparrow
Veteran
That smiley is soo sweet Bill
:enigmatic:
:enigmatic:
bmattock
Veteran
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Yes, but the amounts of silver involved are pretty trival, which is why most sane and scientifically literate local authorities don't worry about the tiny amounts that are poured down the drain by amateur photographers.
The amounts tipped down the average town drain 20 years ago must have been 1 or 2 orders of magnitude greater than today and it still wasn't a problem.
Cheers,
R.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
oh, great, another Saab story...
- Barrett
My favourite Saab story:
90% of Saab drivers believe that Saabs are the most reliable cars sold today.
And 90% believe that theirs is the only exception.
(The same story is told of Volvos).
Cheers,
R.
amateriat
We're all light!
Roger: Right before reading this, i was thinking about all the intact-but-ragged-looking Saabs (pre-GM takeover...I don't really care to discuss those later ones) here in the NYC area. (Think of Miles' Saab in Sideways.) Did they get that way because their build quality didn't live up to the hype, or because their enthusiastic owners/second owners/etc. drove the sweet things nearly into the ground? I've always liked 'em, but I wonder.
As for dealing with photo chemistry, I try to be reasonable about what gets poured down the drain. But, in the basement where I'll be starting up film developing again, you should see the stuff others have poured down that same drain. Makes anything I end up pouring down there seem no more poisonous than a particularly stiff cocktail.
- Barrett
As for dealing with photo chemistry, I try to be reasonable about what gets poured down the drain. But, in the basement where I'll be starting up film developing again, you should see the stuff others have poured down that same drain. Makes anything I end up pouring down there seem no more poisonous than a particularly stiff cocktail.
- Barrett
Leigh Youdale
Well-known
I was once told that the only likely problem arising from photographic chemicals being disposed of via the drains was if I'd consumed them first.
So for almost fifty years living in both Melbourne and Sydney I have therefore poured them away accompanied by a good flush of tap water and gone back to my Scotch.
So for almost fifty years living in both Melbourne and Sydney I have therefore poured them away accompanied by a good flush of tap water and gone back to my Scotch.
Papa Smurf
Established
My contention exactly and also my reason for calling for common sense. Along time ago, when cancer research was all the rage, one study concluded that giving lab rats massive doses of distilled water promoted cancer growth. All things in moderation, as the old folks used to say. Unless your town is very small, its sewage treatment facility very inadequate, and there are a large number of photographers rolling their own, I doubt very much that the amount of water soluble silver is significantly high to cause problems with the eco-system. Kodak's publication on disposing of photo-chemicals says that most of the silver precipitates out and remains in the sludge in a non-water soluble state and therefore, has little impact upon the enviroment.
PlantedTao
Well-known
Fix should not be put down the drain.
If you are worried about bad chemicals in the environment and your impact, then you should think about what chemicals you use. This is what I have been using http://silvergrain.com/
If you are worried about bad chemicals in the environment and your impact, then you should think about what chemicals you use. This is what I have been using http://silvergrain.com/
Pablito
coco frío
At the college where I work, we have similar controls in place to make sure we abide by state law (it's a different state). Everything does down the drain except the fixer and water used for holding fixed prints before the wash. Those go thru silver recovery unit.
rxmd
May contain traces of nut
Hi Roger & Papa Smurf,
The problem doesn't occur in the ecosystem, it's in your sewage treatment facility. Sewage treatment works using a milieu of bacteria ("activated sludge") to clean the water. Silver is hazardous to those bacteria. By pouring stuff down the drain you're damaging your local sewage plant more than the environment. You don't have to be a tree-hugger to consider this a bad idea.
Actually they're not. A liter of spent fixer can contain several grams of silver - up to 4-5 g/l if you use one-bath fixing, which is what you see from the scale on fixing bath testing sticks, up to 10-15 g/l if you use two-bath fixing. For comparison: commercially available antibacterial tablets for cleaning drinking water (Micropur MC10T) contain about 0.1 mg/l for cleaning ten liters of drinking water. In other words, one liter of spent fixer from the first step of a two-bath fixing cascade contains enough silver for the antibacterial treatment of about 100.000 liters of water. While this obciously doesn't translate to 100 cubic meters of microbial sludge in your sewage plant, it still is quite bad.
Given that your local sewage plant processes quite a bit more than those 100 cubic meters, the amount of damage is rather controlled; I guess that is what you mean. ("I don't know how many fishponds there are all over the country, but if you dump stuff in just one of them it doesn't doo too much damage.") The fact that it was bad twenty years ago, that people were irresponsible back then, and the often-heard (not from you in this case) that other people behave irresponsible too so why shouldn't you, doesn't change that it's still irresponsible today.
I don't know about the US or southern France, but over here handing in used photochemicals for treatment is free for a reason. Given that there's practically no extra work involved in behaving responsibly instead of irresponsibly, the same sane and scientifically literate local authorities would probably tell you that small quantity is no excuse for laziness. Even where it isn't free, or if it's too much work to drive over to wherever you can hand in your chemicals every few weeks, you can get the silver out at home. It is no work at all to pour your spent fixer into a jug, put in a swab of iron wool or a tablespoon of sodium dithionite (at $20 the kilogram) and leave it in your back yard for two weeks before you pour it down the drain. There's really no reason not to do so.
On a different note, if you're chemically minded and use your darkroom regularly, you can smelt the silver out of the residue from the sodium dithionite and have your local dental technician cast it into a ring for the significant other once a year or so. Nobody said there's no secondary benefits to darkroom work.
Philipp
The problem doesn't occur in the ecosystem, it's in your sewage treatment facility. Sewage treatment works using a milieu of bacteria ("activated sludge") to clean the water. Silver is hazardous to those bacteria. By pouring stuff down the drain you're damaging your local sewage plant more than the environment. You don't have to be a tree-hugger to consider this a bad idea.
Actually they're not. A liter of spent fixer can contain several grams of silver - up to 4-5 g/l if you use one-bath fixing, which is what you see from the scale on fixing bath testing sticks, up to 10-15 g/l if you use two-bath fixing. For comparison: commercially available antibacterial tablets for cleaning drinking water (Micropur MC10T) contain about 0.1 mg/l for cleaning ten liters of drinking water. In other words, one liter of spent fixer from the first step of a two-bath fixing cascade contains enough silver for the antibacterial treatment of about 100.000 liters of water. While this obciously doesn't translate to 100 cubic meters of microbial sludge in your sewage plant, it still is quite bad.
Given that your local sewage plant processes quite a bit more than those 100 cubic meters, the amount of damage is rather controlled; I guess that is what you mean. ("I don't know how many fishponds there are all over the country, but if you dump stuff in just one of them it doesn't doo too much damage.") The fact that it was bad twenty years ago, that people were irresponsible back then, and the often-heard (not from you in this case) that other people behave irresponsible too so why shouldn't you, doesn't change that it's still irresponsible today.
I don't know about the US or southern France, but over here handing in used photochemicals for treatment is free for a reason. Given that there's practically no extra work involved in behaving responsibly instead of irresponsibly, the same sane and scientifically literate local authorities would probably tell you that small quantity is no excuse for laziness. Even where it isn't free, or if it's too much work to drive over to wherever you can hand in your chemicals every few weeks, you can get the silver out at home. It is no work at all to pour your spent fixer into a jug, put in a swab of iron wool or a tablespoon of sodium dithionite (at $20 the kilogram) and leave it in your back yard for two weeks before you pour it down the drain. There's really no reason not to do so.
On a different note, if you're chemically minded and use your darkroom regularly, you can smelt the silver out of the residue from the sodium dithionite and have your local dental technician cast it into a ring for the significant other once a year or so. Nobody said there's no secondary benefits to darkroom work.
Philipp