Re: chemicals and septic tanks

Sil Horwitz (silh@iag.net)
Fri, 30 Jan 1998 21:09:12 -0500

At 08:15 PM 1998/01/30 -0500, Wgcactus@aol.com wrote:
>I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions for my new darkroom. I moved
>into a house with a septic tank back in August and I'm just getting around to
>building it. I know that wholesale dumping of chemistry into the tank is a
>really bad idea. I'm basically going to store the used/bad stuff in jugs
>until I make the monthly run to my county's household hazmat disposal
>facility.

According to Kodak and most other chemistry suppliers, small quantities (up
to ten liters or so) of common developers, and fixers, normally diluted
with wash water, actually can aid septic tank operation. Some of the
"alternative printing" chemicals are not good for the digestion that is
required by the septic tank process. Kodak has literature on this; you
might drop over to their Web site <http://www.kodak.com> and get the true
word!

Now, if you are planning to run a commercial operation, with thousands of
gallons/liters of effluent, that's another matter. I think they have
information on that also.

Sil Horwitz, FPSA
Technical Editor, PSA Journal
silh@iag.net
Visit http://www.psa-photo.org/