Disposing of unwanted or expired aquarium chemicals

[deeda]

Hi all,

Over the years I've acquired a variety of either products that I bought, opened and didn't like or items purchased at aquarium auctions. They range from powdered and liquid water conditioners to test kit reagents and buffer products.

My question is how to responsibly dispose of these various products without impacting sewage systems (I have a septic system), water ways/wildlife, landfills or personal exposure to the products.

Some products that come to mind are:
API test kit reagents
API pH down (sulfuric acid)
API pH up
Liquid or powdered water conditioners
Liquid or powdered plant foods

I know this is a rather broad topic but I think it is one that is often over looked in the hobby, especially with new aquarists though it might be helpful to those of us in the hobby for years.

Currently I have a couple almost full bottles of pH down from the early 90's I got at an auction and the MSDS sheet states the following:
SECTION 13 DISPOSAL CONSIDERATIONS
Waste treatment methods
Product / Packaging disposal
Recycle wherever possible.
Consult manufacturer for recycling options or consult local or regional waste management authority for disposal if no suitable treatment or disposal facility can be identified.
Treat and neutralise at an approved treatment plant. Treatment should involve: Neutralisation with soda-ash or soda-lime followed by: burial in a land-fill specifically licenced to accept chemical and / or pharmaceutical wastes or Incineration in a licenced apparatus (after admixture with suitable combustible material).

Soda ash is listed as sodium carbonate and one substitute might be washing soda. Would baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) also work for this purpose to neutralize the pH down?

 

[Drstrangelove]

Good question.

Disposal of chemicals is controlled by federal and state laws or regulations. Contact the local authorities in your city (typically waste disposal) and ask them as they are the only ones that can answer this question with any certainty.

In many cases they will be able to take them at certain locations on certain days for free.

 

[deeda]

Thanks for the response! Yes our county does have semi-annual or annual events, depending on the chemical, but for some reason they always schedule them on the days we have our club auctions.

Medications are easier to dispose of because they can be taken to local police precincts that have drop off areas for those items.

 

[johnny potatoes]

In my opinion, it should be easier to dispose of hazardous waste. They just don't make it very easy. I recently moved and had to go to 3 different places on different days depending on what it was. The last place I lived they took anything on any day, they just wanted to know what it was so they could handle it properly. Not being a resident of that county I wasn't able to go there anymore. Not a big mystery as to why I find piles of stuff in the desert. They want us to do the right thing but don't make it easy. Sorry for the rant, good luck.

 

[BugFreak72]

I have a local household hazardous waste facility near the dump in my area. Check where yours is, they probably take them. Mine is open every day the dump is open.

 

[Mighty Wizard]

Most chemicals that are readily available over the counter would make effectively no difference to a large enough body of water. This is especially true when PH is concerned. Chemicals having serious adverse effects on ecosystems almost exclusively stem from industrial spills and accidents. That being said one shouldn't go around dumping chemicals as a habit. If it's a cup of caustic soda then you could safely throw it in the toilet. If it's a drum of Fluoroantimonic acid then you should probably neutralize it first, or contact relevant authorities. Volatile chemicals like Acetone is actually safest to release into the atmosphere where it will be rendered virtually effectless because of entropy and would degrade in a matter of hours or days. Again I'm talking of minute quantities here so use common sense.

Most chemicals that are seriously destructive in small dosages are heavily restricted the world over and you won't ever see them, unless you're lucky enough to work with such substances. And those warnings on the back of nearly any household chemical container are mostly there to prevent expensive lawsuits.

Also be very careful if dealing with PH extremes and water, if a substance is to be neutralized or some such. Many of the strongest acids and bases will make dare I say somewhat lively results when water is introduced. This only goes for the more powerful ones but it's important none the less as most peoples' first thought when they see an acid spill is copious amounts of water.

 

[Drstrangelove]

Most chemicals that are readily available over the counter would make effectively no difference to a large enough body of water.

Of course, even of one assumes this is true, it does not mean that it's not illegal to dump those chemicals.

 

[Mighty Wizard]

Of course, even of one assumes this is true, it does not mean that it's not illegal to dump those chemicals.

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that laws are really more guide lines than anything. Some are outdated, some are only needed rarely and plenty of them were made by silly people with silly ideas. Then Bureaucratism.

As for disposing of many of these chemicals "safely" one would actually just be doing a lot more damage to the environment. Take the OP's example:

SECTION 13 DISPOSAL CONSIDERATIONS
Waste treatment methods
Product / Packaging disposal
Recycle wherever possible.
Consult manufacturer for recycling options or consult local or regional waste management authority for disposal if no suitable treatment or disposal facility can be identified.
Treat and neutralise at an approved treatment plant. Treatment should involve: Neutralisation with soda-ash or soda-lime followed by: burial in a land-fill specifically licenced to accept chemical and / or pharmaceutical wastes or Incineration in a licenced apparatus (after admixture with suitable combustible material).

Going about it this way would be seriously ridiculous, and is posted on the back of those consumer size bottles mainly for legal reasons. The caustic soda you would be wasting on neutralizing the acid, already did more harm being made than the acid could ever do to the environment directly, and that's before taking into account the fact that the caustic soda literally just went to waste. Then stuffed into a landfill apparently... Lastly, sulfuric acid isn't really a powerful substance, you'd have to spill it undiluted unto something living and then let it do it's thing, or something very small in order to kill or seriously harm anything.

Disposing of it in such a manner would only really make sense if you're dealing with huge quantities, and then still this particular method is rather questionable in efficiency. Of course various facilities should be used where provided, but if you were to say drive your car to the dump in order to drop off some Acetone or similar then, again, you've caused as much if not more harm than just dumping it on the asphalt would've. Again you can't really get a hold of chemicals that are seriously dangerous, unless permits are in place, in which case there are usually strict procedures in place as well. The afore-mentioned Fluoroantimonic acid for example will produce very interesting reactions with nearly anything, but you'd probably have an easier time sourcing high-explosives than such chemicals.

Literally, if you spill sulfuric acid onto for example grass, the worst case scenario would be dead grass and bugs in the exact places exposed, and then the acid is really gone forever, either diluted or spent. If you throw some sulfuric acid in a body of water, entropy will commence and the water values would hardly change at all, and certainly wouldn't do any damage, so long as we're talking about an actual body of water and consumer-grade quantities. You'd be surprised just how much equivalent-strenght acid you could actually extract from a normal lake.

Naturally I don't actually recommend that anyone break any laws or some such. Only to use common sense, and try to wrap your head around how a chemical you're using actually works. In some cases it really is better to dump it somewhere suitable. It's all about entropy, and understanding the substance in question, and what would actually happen if you were to for example throw it in a lake.

Id also like to mention that I'm talking exclusively about boring every day household chemicals here. where anything biological/infectious is concerned the obvious thing to do is to make sure it doesn't get out and destroy it properly. There really isn't a grey zone here, even tropical diseases and biological agents can have seriously negative adverse effects on temperate ecology, and visa-versa. Chemistry is often easy to predict, while biology can be anything but.

 

[robham777]

Not to impugn the legitimacy of the question, but in the case of stuff like ph up/down and water conditioners during the normal course of their use they are going into a tank that will later be drained somewhere during maintenance.

 

[Mighty Wizard]

Not to impugn the legitimacy of the question, but in the case of stuff like ph up/down and water conditioners during the normal course of their use they are going into a tank that will later be drained somewhere during maintenance.

Well done sir you just proved my (entire) point in one sentence Perhaps I need to start using fewer words.