Properly Storing the Developer in a Darkroom

Video Transcript

" My name is Jeff and I am going to talk to you about disposing of your photograph chemicals. The developer you can pour down the drain; there is nothing dangerous in that. Stop bath; you can pour down the drain. That is like strong vinegar. Fixer, however, you don’t want to pour down the drain. You could call a lab and ask them if they can recover the silver from it, or there are a lot of dental labs that are set up to recover silver… and if nothing else, I would wait for a city wide chemical disposal day or something. It has silver in it which is a heavy metal and you don’t want to be pouring that down the drain. Everything else, won’t hurt a thing; just going down the drain. As far as storing your mixed chemicals, developer oxidizes very readily, so you want to put it in a dark colored plastic jug and the less air trapped in that jug, the longer it will keep. It is not going to keep very long once you have diluted it but it should keep for 2 to 4 weeks fine. Keep it away from heat or air. What kills developer is oxidation. "