On Mar 15, 2009, at 16:53 , John Sessoms wrote:
From: Scott Loveless
On 3/13/09, eactiv...@aol.com <eactiv...@aol.com> wrote:
> There's really no good reason people should tell someone else
to be
> irresponsible regarding the environment.
No one's being irresponsible. There is no evidence anywhere from
anyone that J. Random Photographer dumping a gallon of fixer down the
drain every few months does any more damage to the environment or
treatment plant than the chemicals you use to clean your bath tub.
Or
latex paint. Or mineral spirits. Or anything else that's commonly
dumped down the drain. It's knee-jerking, over-reacting nonsense.
Except that in many places, and a growing number of places at that,
it *IS* against the law to dump chemicals, oil, latex paint, mineral
spirits or raw used fixer down the drain.
I'm pretty sure Marnie is in California, where it's even against the
law to dump processed, de-silvered fixer into the drains.
That it may do no more damage is irrelevant. If it does as much
damage that's a problem in itself.
It may be "knee-jerking, over-reacting nonsense", but in many
jurisdictions, when it shows up in the sewage treatment facility,
they will attempt to trace it back to the source, and if they catch
you, you're going to pay a whopping fine at the very least.
But - do your own thing.
California has excellent recycling facilities (though not as many as
some would like). When I lived there last year I was in the boonies,
and everything had to be taken either 18 miles to the Sonoma County
dump, which would accept mixed paper, appliances, TVs, computers, oil,
car batteries, mixed metals. If I wanted to drive an extra 20 miles
(if I was going into Santa Rosa) I could get paid for my metals (soda
cans) & plastics (soda bottles) and put damn near anything in an array
of containers labeled for newspaper, paper, cardboard, glass (by
color), steel, aluminum, wire, rubber, etc..
This is very close to what I could do when I was a kid in Wellesley,
Mass. in the 50s. The town dump had receptacles for most everything
mentioned above, plus they would take my photo chemicals, paint in
sealed cans, garden and household chemicals, plastic jugs and wax
coated milk cartons.
In Seattle and Everett, where I now live again, they pick stuff up
weekly or biweekly, depending on your location, and they are very
strict about what you can put out to recycle. Aluminum cans, plastic
and glass bottles of certain types, newsprint, paper is about it. Yard
waste, of course, with clean food waste thrown mixed in. Every thing
else it trash, and gets no processing, it's hauled off in long trains
to other states remote locales. Paint, chemicals, pressurized cans,
chemicals, hazmat items, other metals, appliances, furniture, etc.,
they want nothing to do with. You have to take it to a "Transfer
station" where you pay them by the load to dispose of it. TVs and
computers and the like you have to take to these transfer stations as
well, and pay them per unit to recycle them.
There is a pretty big business in recycling electronics commercially,
much donated for free, including old crt monitors recently (used to
have to pay them $20 up to 17", $40 any size over) which they could
then turn around and sell back to the public, or sell by the ton to
"dismantlers" and hope they were in the USA and not get sold to places
where they would not be properly handled. I fleshed out many a
computer system, and built two home entertainment networks with
electronics from "Re-PC" in Seattle over the years.
By the way, in California, the cost of recycling electronics is paid
for when you purchase the items (computers, TVs, Stereos) so dumping
is free. Made my day when I got rid of many dozens of pieces of
electronic and computing gear that I brought down there with me, but
did not want to bring back up to Seattle, for free. Moving the other
way is gonna hurt you if you don't get rid of your old stuff first.
Joseph McAllister
Pentaxian
http://gallery.me.com/jomac
http://web.me.com/jomac/show.me/Blog/Blog.html
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