Wasting water

[Yoricko]

Every time I develop my own B&W films, I feel that I'm wasting quite a bit of water. (Even though I have a bucket that contains used water from rinsing my film and developing tank stuffs that I use to clean the house) My session always send with a bucket half-filled (2-3 litres I think).

Am I wasting too much water or is it always like that?

 

[FrozenInTime]

3 litres seems about right :

Today for 2x120 I used :
1 litre pre-wash, 1 litre purified + 20ml rodinal , stop (re-used), fix (re-used), ~ 10 x 1 litre rinse and 1 litre purified wash agent (re-used).

10 litres ( 1x 35mm would be 1/3 of that )

 

[hans voralberg]

Use the rinsing water to water you plants perhaps, save the environment in some way. Dont use the fixer or developer though, they kill plants.

 

[Yoricko]

Use the rinsing water to water you plants perhaps, save the environment in some way. Dont use the fixer or developer though, they kill plants.

I use that bucket of water to mop the floor. And it usually contains very diluted fixer/dev (from the rinse after the fixer/dev time ends).

FrozenInTime: 10 litres?! o_o

 

[FrozenInTime]

FrozenInTime: 10 litres?! o_o

I'm 5 minutes into the second film pair of the day now and hope for a third later.
30 litres down the drain : but at least it's raining, complete with passing thunderstorms, here in Edinburgh at the moment.

 

[visiondr]

I'm in Portland, Oregon - home of >100 cm per year of rainfall. Do I need to conserve here? Even so, I use the Ilford film washing method:

"Alternatively, fill the spiral tank with water at the
same temperature, +/– 5oC (9oF), as the
processing solutions and invert it five times. Drain
the water away and refill. Invert the tank ten times.
Once more drain the water away and refill.
Finally, invert the tank twenty times and drain the
water away." (from the Ilford publication: "Processing your first B&W film")

 

[Fotohuis]

In Holland: Enough water, sometimes a bit too much.

Ilford method:
http://www.geocities.com/researchtriangle/thinktank/5693/photogra.html#fwash

 

[jmcd]

You are making a conscientious effort to use a minimum of water to do something you value, so you are not wasting it. And then you are using the water one more time. That's admirable.

 

[Pablito]

ho hum... wait till you start washing prints....

 

[Al Kaplan]

Here in South Florida we do have times when we're on water restrictions but overall we have too much. Still, I try to minimize water use, and the wash water is used on plants along with the used water from my clothes washer. After 42 years of this the plants are thriving.

I'm sure that some of the everday "cleaning products" that get into the sewer in my neighborhood alone put a lot more "poisons" into the environment than I do.

Years ago we used mercury intensifier to save thin negatives and potasium ferracyanide to lighten dense ones or brighten the whites in prints. As for silver it's an effective antibiotic, so getting your hands wet in the tray full of silver laden used fixer just might be keeping you healthier.

 

[Fotohuis]

Years ago we used mercury intensifier to save thin negatives and potasium ferracyanide to lighten dense ones or brighten the whites in prints

Well instead of mercury intensifier for thin negatives you can better redo the exposure 🙂

..... and for Potassium Ferracyanide to lighten dense negatives or prints you can use Potassium Permanganate and Sulfuric Acid instead.

 

[Al Kaplan]

You can't redo exposures for one-time happenings half a century ago. We used what we had.

 

[Yoricko]

Thanks for all the replies, it seems like having half a small bucket of water after developing is kinda normal. At least I'm using the water to mop the floor.

 

[Keith]

I'm very fortunate that all my film developing takes place in a separate small shed away from the main house. It has it's own gravity fed water supply collected from the roof of the shed and with the rainfall we've had here lately the 1000 gallon tank is constantly overflowing ... running the tap for fifteen minutes to wash a film is a guilt free experience! 🙂

 

[nikon_sam]

I use running water for about 5-8 minutes for the final rinse then let the film sit in water for as long as it takes to clear it...
I don't like wasting water either...sometimes I'll use the rinse water to water some plants...I do the same with the rinse water when printing...

 

[Chuck Albertson]

Like visiondr, I use the Ilford method for most films. It was developed after a nasty drought in the UK in 1976; we had the same drought in Seattle, which led to water use restrictions, and I've used the method ever since. It doesn't seem to do the trick with T-Max and Delta films, though, which generally require a running-water wash to get rid of the dyes in the emulsion.

 

[Chris101]

... As for silver it's an effective antibiotic, so getting your hands wet in the tray full of silver laden used fixer just might be keeping you healthier.

It's antibiotic action is exactly the problem, as the treatment of waste water relies on an anaerobic action of bacteria to break down the 'biodegradable waste'. If enough heavy metal is flushed, the bacteria in the treatment tanks dies, leaving the sewage untreated.

As for using silver as a personal bactericide, it accumulates in the liver and other organs leading to chronic health problems.

 

[Freakscene]

I live in the driest State of the driest continent, though Keith has experienced harsher water restrictions than we have had enforced here. I use more water than that when I develop. I use everything apart from the used developer and fix and a small bucket that I do a quick rinse in immediately after the film comes out of the fix but before it gets washed to water plants. They are mostly vegetables that we eat. They grow well and when I had them tested for residues (just to check) there was nothing that could be attributed to my B&W photography habit. B&W photography just uses water, unfortunately.

Marty

 

[shadowfox]

ho hum... wait till you start washing prints....

I was just about to say 🙂

For Fiber-based papers: One hour of continuous water flow (30 min. if you use Hypo-clearing stuff).

 

[martin s]

Just wanted to mention this thing.. Jobo cascade, was about 10 Euros. Genius, I think I'm saving water but haven't measured it yet. I'm not really sure how long it takes to get the negs clean, I'm pretty sure I'm overdoing it still.

martin