SimpleChemist-238
Hazard to Others
Posts: 147
Registered: 28-9-2014
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Mood: Chlorine Trifloride Flame Thrower
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Chemistry Using ground Water
I might be moving to a area that has no city water and it is feed by ground water. This means that disposing of chemicals and side products after a
experiment would go right down the sink and into the ground water? This might pose a problem if so. How do you dispose of lab waste safely in a home
lab feed by ground water?
Please excuse spelling if any mistakes
We are chemists , we bring light to the darkness. Knowledge to ignorant, excitement to the depressed and unknowing. we bring crops to broken fields
and water to the desert. Where there is fear we bring curiosity.
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Bert
Super Administrator
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Registered: 12-3-2004
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Mood: " I think we are all going to die. I think that love is an illusion. We are flawed, my darling".
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You need to think CAREFULLY about ethically and safely disposing of lab waste REGARDLESS of being on a city sewer or a country septic system- The city
didn't design that sewage treatment plant to handle water soluble heavy metal compounds, explosives, etc. They designed it to handle piss, shit, soapy
water and kitchen wastes.
What have you BEEN doing?!
And YES! Do not put any lab wastes down the toilet/drain into a septic tank type waste disposal system except the most benign types- Unless you'd
eat/drink that waste without a problem. You'll kill the organisms that break down your waste, as well as poisoning the local water table.
Rapopart’s Rules for critical commentary:
1. Attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly and fairly that your target says: “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it
that way.”
2. List any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
3. Mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
Anatol Rapoport was a Russian-born American mathematical psychologist (1911-2007).
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WGTR
National Hazard
Posts: 971
Registered: 29-9-2013
Location: Online
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Mood: Outline
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Working at a business forces one to develop certain important habits in the lab. Our waste water and runoff is monitored very closely by the EPA.
Basically nothing can be dumped down the drain other than water. Any infractions are dealt with swiftly, and can result in expensive fines, and loss
of employment for the employee responsible.
As a result, I've developed the habit of figuring out what to do with any generated waste before starting a project in the lab. Any rinse water from
lab processes is caught and sent out for hazardous waster disposal. It doesn't matter if cadmium is precipitated completely as a sulfide, the
leftover clear water is considered just as toxic as the original solution, and can't be dumped down the drain. This is partly because we aren't
certified to treat our own waste water. Many times I will treat waste solutions to render them safer for transport, but cannot dump anything down the
drain.
Yes, if you have a well, then you are drinking whatever motor oil, cooking grease, and chromic acid waste that you've been dumping in the yard. If
you're on city water, then the entire city is drinking your motor oil, cooking grease, and chromic acid waste. Fun.
For home chemistry, your city may have a residential waste disposal center that can handle your disposal needs. Many times this service is free.
Aside from this, think ahead before starting a project. For many heavy metals, sulfide precipitation is adequate. Evaporation is your friend, as it
is easier to get rid of solid salts than containers of various liquids. If it's flammable, burn it. If it's valuable, reclaim it. If it grows an
arm and tries to attack you, aim for center mass.
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chemrox
International Hazard
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Registered: 18-1-2007
Location: UTM
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Mood: LaGrangian
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Find the local transfer station that handles chemical waste and become a conditionally exempt small quantity generator. Talk about being part of the
problem! You've been pouring your waste on the ground??!! This why people get paranoid about chemistry hobbyists. One of the most environmentally
problematical groups of compounds is the halogenated solvents. They are DNAPLs.. denser than water and insoluble compounds. They migrate toward the
bottom of the first aquifer they encounter and are stopped by the impervious layer, aquitard or aquiclude, that serves as the bottom of the water
bearing zone. There is no such thing thing as "away." You can discard but you can't "throw away" anything. Be a good citizen and pay the money. It's
not that much. Don't collect the waste ina container and dump it in the garbage. It will leak out and migrate vertically through the landfill. Years
ago in my area a father and son team went metal detecting over an old landfill and dug up some pyrophoric metal. One was seriously injured; the other
killed.
[Edited on 2-12-2014 by chemrox]
"When you let the dumbasses vote you end up with populism followed by autocracy and getting back is a bitch." Plato (sort of)
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SimpleChemist-238
Hazard to Others
Posts: 147
Registered: 28-9-2014
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chlorine Trifloride Flame Thrower
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I have not been pour waste on ground. Thanks for the info. I use to know a chemist in back water Georgia who did that, hate to live there. Some people
are very carless. I am getting my lab certification soon so I won't be doing as much working in my home lab.
We are chemists , we bring light to the darkness. Knowledge to ignorant, excitement to the depressed and unknowing. we bring crops to broken fields
and water to the desert. Where there is fear we bring curiosity.
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