disposal of dichromates

[Judy Seigel <jseigel@panix.com>]

I mentioned this on the list about 90 years ago in case someone has a 
photographic memory... It was at school, and some buttinsky chem lab 
assistant wandered into my non-silver lab and insisted I had to have the 
students keep ALL dichromate wash water, waste water, solution residue, 
and tray wash etc. etc. in a barrel for ceremonial cleansing or whatever 
it was.  Since I couldn't get the aforementioned free spirits to empty a 
tray of plain water without the use of violence (making me old before my 
time), I called the EPA to check.

That of course was a several-day project but I finally got through to 
someone who was or was said to be and sounded like "authority" with title 
to match.  I explained my problem. He asked how much we used.  I thought a 
while and figured that I and both my classes together used maybe a pound 
per semester.

He laughed, and said there were air conditioning systems that used a pound 
in 45 minutes (this was maybe 15 years ago, maybe they don't any more) and 
especially given a city sewer system with 7 million people flushing their 
toilets all day & night, I could pour the solutions down the drain, no 
problem.

(Tho probably not into your personal septic tank.)

J.