Preferred Etchant?

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2011/01/HouseholdChemicalDisposalEnvironment-4.pdf
Water quality information-Can grey-water usage have an impact on household chemical dumping?
Featured Story: Stormwater Runoff - Water - Region 9 - EPA
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That's five minutes of searching. Can you still say that this isn't a problem?

How many websites can you buy chemical etchants from, that means one thing, their is a demand for them from private individuals. Your mindset being so common out of sight out of mind the bulk majority of those chemicals sold the hobbyists end up in the waterways, it's irresponsible to suggest that dumping things like that down the drain is okay.

Finding a place in your local area to legally get rid of these materials in a safe manner are EASY TO FIND and generally free! Nope just dump it down the drain shouldn't be an option anywhere. All you see in the media is companies that are large users of these things, the problem is household disposal of chemicals is a point source... but it's not. Meaning the chemicals are dumped at a point, but all of those points along the way are mixed together, there's no way to measure the actual amount of stuff that shouldn't be going down the drain is, even industrial sites bypass their monitoring programs because it's impossible to trace this stuff once it hit's the water ways.

The logic that point sources from industry are a bigger problem can't be quantitatively measured because the problem from household sources can't be measured practically. Your logic is basically saying getting shot in the foot by someone that's mad at you is okay because they didn't shoot you in the head...

Alright everyone! lets go shooting people we don't like in the foot! It's not the head!! Weehahaa.

Any of this sinking in?

Sceadwain...save your rhetoric for the uninformed. Perhaps u should go offline...and save some electricity thereby saving this waste of energy on your part since it's so critical to the environment.

Mosaic... You're really off your rocker and apparently are hiding your head in the sand

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such vitriol......go take a walk!

I have a dedicated soil soakaway if it makes u feel any better. Don't want u get a stroke .

Yes Mosaic, of course I'm wrong, sorry, all these governments are saying this stuff because it's PC... They take these chemicals in free because they know it makes no difference.. You'll see this mostly in municipalities that have wastewater treatment plants on their sewer discharges because many don't (our city dumps straight into lake ontario) The reason? The municpalities with wasterwater treatment plants have them because they were orderd to or realized they were massivly polluting the eventual catch source of these wastes. They have to lower the metals and waste effluent to something that can be legally sent to local waterways. They have these programs because every ounce of stuff that they take out of the publics hands directly is an ounces they don't have to treat at their effluent plants.

Simply point it is WRONG to say that this kind of action is okay seeing as how the proper way to dispose of these wastes is already easily within reach. It is a trivial thing to concentrate via evaporation and every 1 or 5 years take it all to the local hazardous waste location.

In the drawer I have batteries stored at right now there is at LEAST 10lbs of lead, many ounces of sulfuric acid, a few ounces of cadmium metal and enough alkaline batteries that you could strip paint off a car with a dilute solution of it. all of this stuff goes down the drain or in the dump every day because of your mentality.

Sure one batch of etchant is nothing... Why don't you actually think about everything you have ever thrown out in your life and do the math in your head =)

This isn't just about hobbyist etchers,

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I am afraid that this IS about hobbyost etchers....the thread is about what we use. Go rant about pollution on your own thread. We etch because we MUST. The thread is not about etchant disposal.

What you're saying is that it's okay to dump this etchant down the drain, it is NOT. And it is trivial to dispose of it properly. That is simple fact. That you're arguing against this is... amazing to me. I'm not a greenie or obsessed with this kind of stuff, but to say it's okay is irrational as a human being, period.

Can u stop now?..I hope a moderator can truncate this offtopic stuff...or make another thread for u to fill.

It's 100% on topic because my choice of etchant has to do with the ease of elimination of it given the resources I have available. The down the drain option is often used, it should NEVER be viewed as okay though, won't stop people from doing it, but if they're not aware what they're doing is in general not the thing you should be doing that much at least needs be said.

You saying this is okay is what is wrong, it is not okay.

Sceadwian said:

It's 100% on topic because my choice of etchant has to do with the ease of elimination of it given the resources I have available. The down the drain option is often used, it should NEVER be viewed as okay though, won't stop people from doing it, but if they're not aware what they're doing is in general not the thing you should be doing that much at least needs be said.

You saying this is okay is what is wrong, it is not okay.

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Lets do this in a more constructive, less emotional fashion.

https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/disposal-of-etchant.115166/#post944349

That's fine Mosaic.
You're saying that dumping known hazardous chemicals down the drain is okay because there are larger point sources like industry to worry about?
This has logically speaking no ground, why is the small source okay and the large source not? Volume? Okay, how many smaller point sources are there available data from? Oh none, yet every human being on earth is a point source, not for just etchant, but work that portion out and even that number should scare you. Industrial waste water discharge even treated can be monitored, home discharges can't. Regardless of the relative volume, saying that it's okay to dump any chemical down the drain is not responsible to sane reasoning that says if you have a place that can take these materials concentrate them and dispose of them in a lawful manner then why should dumping it down the drain into the local water way be a preferred method?

It's simple to me, there is no logical statement that would make the premise that it's okay to dump these chemicals down the drain or into a landfill have any fundamental backing for best practice scenarios for ANY living human being that has access to a community in which waste treatment is even possible regardless of the concentration. There is a BETTER way to deal with these wastes that you're activly fightin against!

This is FREE in many counties! FREE
Drop it off they deal with it.

Yet your logical standpoint is that dumping it down the drain is perfectly fine even though you have not one single metric on the number of people that could be doing this?

AHHHHHHHHHHH, the US government says it's ok, did you not read my link. It advocates dumping 2lb of CuSO4 down your drain twice a year.

Mike.

I don't think he reads other peoples links.

No, actually it's not the US government, it's the city that advocate's is use as a pesticide and it look like a county in this case. Federal EPA guidelines would cause such a discharge to be considered a crime, there is no universal system for the laws though. The county can't make it 'okay'

One hand doesn't know what the other is doing.


Read the end of the clicky.

Finding ways to improve sewer design and construction. Cities that annually spend millions on sewer clearance would do better to invest in long-term solutions to the problem.

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You can patch it all you want with crap, won't make sense when you're done.
It means they're being cheap, and this is what's been done before, not what should be done now, and in the case of an infestation of roots into sewer lines the coper sulfate is actually being SPENT in killing the roots, not at the ultimate discharge point in the case of a larger city.

In this case the use of copper sulfate is INTENTIONAL for a purpose, not as a waste product. Difference? The roots take up the copper sulfate and they die from it. Your copper sulfate will continue to go down the drain until it enters the local water table and it kills a plant there. Might not be such a good idea to put the chemically intentionally where it's not wanted.

You know, I'm still waiting to see what your local sewer discharge permit says =)

Mosaic said:

That's why draino and muriatic acid and copper salts used to clear drains is not considered enough of a problem to legislate or police. Folks who want to sweat the small stuff can if they want to. It's the big consumers that really matter since their average output can be very damaging. Sometimes I wonder if the people who agonise over carbon emissions and global warming etc. ought to perhaps hold their breath and don't crap or fart (methane) for 50% of the time to see if that improves things.

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Sceadwian said:

and in the case of an infestation of roots into sewer lines the coper sulfate is actually being SPENT in killing the roots, not at the ultimate discharge point in the case of a larger city.

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Ok, problem solved.

Save and use/give to friends for bi-yearly root removal.

Instead of buying the 2lb of copper sulfate for drain removal, you can make your own... From your waste etchant.

Re-purpose your etchant as root-killer, drain cleaner. Now it ISNT a waste product. It is just a product.

Im sure any of us can find friends with root problems.

That clears that up!

Nice solution RMM, but I don't know anyone that has root infiltration of their sewer lines, the local government is responsible for that.

maybe there's a cure somewhere for thread hijacking.

The core thread was fulfilled about the first page. Nothing has been hijacked besides perhaps your sensibilities.

Well I wonder what our self appointed waste etchant expert will say about my disposal of spent ammonium persulphate, I simply let the water evaporate off which leaves a sludge then using a funnel with a thin hose on the waste goes down an ant hole. It does seem I need to do more etching as after I do the disposal the ants seem to move to another spot. In winter i have a bit of fun and put diesel down with a wick and the smoke comes up from another ant hole metres away.

I am sure forum members are sick and tired of our self appointed etchant expert and I reckon if we held a poll it would be 99.9% in favour of him shutting his trap on the subject.

Cheers Bryan

I think is still is plenty on topic. There is a big "WHY" in choosing the etchants we choose.

I will request my posts regarding disposal be moved to the Disposal of Etchant! Thread.

Lets open a poll on the subject shall we Bryan? Perhaps they might be more in favor of shutting your trap on the subject of me =) Especially considering you're a late comer to the game and as a moderator you're trying to antagonize a user.

I will stand by everything I have ever said about disposing of etchant waste. I KNOW how to dispose of it legally, properly, and with a clear conscience. Even if I didn't have a local waste treatment facility that I could just drop this off at I've already mentioned in at least two threads how to deal with it. Once you have a dry powder you mix it into concrete. It's going to be there for a hundred years or more.

The object is to immobilize the metals outside of the water table, and reduce the water stream to a neutral PH. A common hobby dump would result in a few days or weeks in the sun to get rid of water and the immobile mass (brick) would be the size of well, a brick.

It's one more brick not in soluble circulation in the local water table. I am truly sorry my thoughts aren't more prevalent, but they are however 'best practice' cost little to implement and let me sleep well at night.

The fact that my basic suggestions are not just being ignored but ACTIVELY fought against is a crime against common sense.