Treating Mirror Waste

[Sarah King]

Roderick,

Your post reminded me that we have developed a simple way to deal with mirror waste.

As you know, heavy metals should never go into the public sewer system. So what Mike (our resident chemist) says you can do is collect all your mirror waste in empty distilled water or milk gallon jugs. Add about two tablespoons of washing soda and one of table salt per gallon and shake it all up. Let it sit until the sludge (the heavy metals) sinks to the bottom - this takes about 24 hours. Carefully pour off the clear stuff on top - which can go down the drain. Add more waste and more washing soda and salt to the bottle and repeat the process.

It will take a long time to fill the bottle with pure sludge. When you do, you can take it to a scrap metal dealer or dry it out and ask your local authorities what to do with it. Since it will contain some silver, you could try to find a silver recycler.

Washing soda is anhydrous sodium carbonate - it is not the same as baking soda. Arm and Hammer sells washing soda as a cleaning agent and you can buy it in some grocery and hardware stores. We have it for sale if you can't find it locally.

The washing soda will make your solution very alkaline which makes the metals come out of solution. Salt will cause the silver to come out of solution, but not the tin or other metals - so it is best to use both. You don't need lots - and it's very easy to see if the process is working.

Several people had asked us about this and I'm glad we have found a simple answer to the problem. I think you would have to be using a whole lot of silver or gold to make reclaiming the sludge a profitable operation, but you can always ask around. Like gold leaf skewings, it looks like more than it is.

Anyway, this system is certainly faster and easier than trying to evaporate all that water.

[Roderick Treece]

Sara,
It's great that we have the Forum to share all of these ideas.I was thinking you could have called me to tell me this but then no one else would know,
I like the time frame for the chemicals to settle.I normally let the waste water settle in old 2.5 water bottles but it was taking for ever, 2-3 weeks.When I have larger orders this gets out of hand.Even with all the recycling so far that I've done I only have a 1/2 gallon of sluge recovered.
The clean water thats left ,I'm not so sure how clean it is.At this point I still to let it evaporate,rather than pour it down the drain.I havn't seen 1 moskito grow in that water and in my area most standing water would only take a week or so befor hundreds would form in the water.
All the mirroring shops i've been to so far just let it run down the drain.I just can't agree with that,so i'am happy you mensioned it.
I did get ahold of a company that comes and picks up left over spent silver.The first time they came I had about 30 gallons of waste water to give him.When I called to have him come out again,He informed me that him got in trouble for picking up so much water and so little sluge.It seems tat dealing with the water is an issue for them as well.

Thanks Sara
Roderick

[Doug Bernhardt]

yea...it is great to have this place to read away at...and thanx for the advice Sarah and Rod.