Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

I don't know if this is BS but someone just posted this on another forum:

i once worked at a printing plant, they went thru a lot of photo work, in the development process, silver is a by product of photo processing.., they dumped that solution down the drain, i took several 5 gallon buckets of the solution home every day, i made up a simple anode/cathode system & reclaimed the silver from the solution.., over a period of 6 months i had over 50 lbs of pure silver !!


http://www.assaultweb.net/cgi-bin/ul...2;t=024136;p=0

50 pounds.... that's about 729 troy ounces!

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

In the circuit board industry they use both liquid gold and liquid silver to plate circuit boards with.

None of the precious metal liquids do they ever dump down the drains. :haha:

Yes it is very possible to plate up liquid silver or liquid gold to a copper wire by placing the wire in the liquid and then running amps thru the wire.

Before long you would have solid silver and solid gold hanging off the copper wire.

MLS

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

I don't know about 50lbs, thats a whole lot of fixer/blix to extract the silver from, but back in the silver boom, just about everybody was sucking their photo solutions for silver, in fact Kodak sold a 5gal. bucket stuffed with steel wool and siphon hose to extract B&W fixer, other co.s sold crude electrolytic units for both B&W and color. color solutions (blix) are quite rich in silver as none is retained in the neg. or print.

also old X-ray film is a silver source for those with a LOT of time on their hands,
but at today's silver prices the work involved does not seem worth it.

also dumping these solutions down the drain is very illegal, and a waste of money, there are companies that will pay you for it. (although not much)

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

There are companies theat currently buy out of date X-ray films, developer and other silver rich "discards." I doubt if anyone is dumping it/them. IIRC, silver is considered a heavy metal and therefore illegal to dump at will.

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

a 24 exposure roll of color 35mm film contains ~.008ozt Ag

so an photo lab processing 50 rolls per day, 6 days per week, 52 weeks per year would have effluent containing 280ozt per year.

in the above scenario that's 2.6 years worth of silver, not 6 mo..
so unless this lab had a 5x throughput of film and a person ignorant to the law as well as economics, this is a highly unlikely claim.

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

More idiots out there than you can shake a stick at. This story does not surprise me and I have no reason not to believe such circumstance exists. We still live in a throw away society. I recently watched a teenager at a convenience store take the pennies out of his change and toss them on the floor. Easy come, easy go.http://www.goldismoney.info/forums/i...lies/frown.gif

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

That's a good thing to do, IMO. What better way to draw attention to the debasement of our currency than to publicly discard wothless debased and de-coppered pennies. If someone says "sir, you dropped some money" you can respond "that's not money. Heck, it's not even copper anymore!".

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

good point. I didn't see it that way.

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

Collect enough of those fake money pennies and you can trade them for real money... I hold on to mine.

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

In the beginning article there is a glaring error in MHO and that is the statement about digital photo replacing conventional film which may be the case but with fewer conventional pictures taken it means also less recycling of the waste material that the silver can be reclaimed and this accounts for a great deal of silver per year recycled and each digital camera has a small amount of silver in the production of that camera and the system where these digital pictures are viewed also contain small amounts of silver in the electronics so as I have been enlightened by others more intelligent than my self it is about a wash between digital and regular pictures///??????????????????????????????????:bandit:

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

I seriously doubt the company dumps it down the drain (environmental reasons not withstanding!) I'm familiar with two firms dealing with film and they both reclaim the silver. I suppose there are exceptions, though...that still leaves the environmental/legal aspect, though.

Re: Reclaimed Photo Process Silver
 

Exactly! Reminds me somewhat of a story I heard years ago. One guy dropped a cent on the floor (back when they were copper) and didn't pick it up. A man, obviously of some wealth, did pick it up. The guy who dropped it says to his friend, "Why is he bothering with a penny, he's rich" His friend responded, "Maybe that's how he got that way"