Disposal of dangerous chemicals/substances

[Bob LambParticipant @boblamb44747]

If you live in certain London boroughs they will collect and dispose of dangerous chemicals for free! Islington has an arrangement with the City of London to collect nasty stuff and dispose of it properly. I discovered this when I tried to get rid of some old tins of paint at the local tip and found that this was now classed as toxic waste. You have to fill in a form and list everything you have – the example they give is sodium cyanide! – but if you think about it it makes sense as nasty stuff isn't just put into the dustbins. You are only allowed a certain number of collections a year but it seems to be an efficient and effective solution AND they even collected from my house. I don't know whether any other Councils offer this service but it would seem to be a very good idea as the cost of cleaning up dumping of toxic waste is probably far higher than dealing with it in a controlled way.

[W J HallParticipant @wjhall48713]

Interesting discussion with Véolia. They thought that the council should take it and actually phoned the council to say so, unfortunately without succeeding in contacting the right person. Their suggestion was then just to take it round and hand it in at the tip. In fact the council website does say that all their tips will take up to 5 litres of chemicals, preferably in original packaging, and with completion of a descriptive form. Nevertheless the council have repeated to my sister that they do not take it.

Another contractor asked for a photo of the packaging and label, which I have had done. I should have thought of that as soon as I found it. We are beginning to develop a long lasting relationship with this bottle, it risks becoming a family heirloom.

When I mentioned to my wife that the photos confirmed that I had not misread a hydrochloric label, she replied that conc HCl is also quite nasty, due to the fumes given off when you open it, although probably not as nasty and insidious as HF's ability to seep through your skin and consume the calcium in your bloodstream.

John

[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Hi there, all,

I hope you're successful in disposing of your Hydrofluoric Acid in an ecologically sound and inexpensive way.

What observations/advice/comments have folks got regarding metallic mercury? I seem to live just about as far from any/all of the barometer refurbishers as UK geography permits!!!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

[Michael Cox 1Participant @michaelcox1]

Hydrofluoric acid is very nasty stuff as has been pointed out here. It can be rendered safe fairly easily by first diluting it and then adding hydrated lime. This is available very cheaply from any builders merchant. The lime, calcium hydroxide, neutralises the acid and converts it to insoluble calcium fluoride. Because it is insoluble calcium fluoride is relatively safe in the environment. In fact, calcium fluoride is the form in which most fluorine is found in nature, The mineral form is fluorspar or blue john. It is an abundant mineral throughout the Pennine areas of northern England.

Although it is easy to make safe using this procedure I would not advocate it being done by inexperienced amateurs.

[Neil LickfoldParticipant @neillickfold44316]

If there is a company that does Aluminium annodising or Ali powdercoating they may want to take it from you, HF acid is used in the pre treatment before the alodine or similar treatment is used. If they only buy in ready to use acids, then your best bet will be a chemical supply company that make such solutions.

Companies that do Aluminium Hard Chrome plating also use HF acid in a pretreatment process as well.

Neil

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Posted by Michael Cox 1 on 11/09/2015 18:31:48:

Hydrofluoric acid is very nasty stuff as has been pointed out here. It can be rendered safe fairly easily by first diluting it and then adding hydrated lime. This is available very cheaply from any builders merchant. The lime, calcium hydroxide, neutralises the acid and converts it to insoluble calcium fluoride. Because it is insoluble calcium fluoride is relatively safe in the environment. In fact, calcium fluoride is the form in which most fluorine is found in nature, The mineral form is fluorspar or blue john. It is an abundant mineral throughout the Pennine areas of northern England.

Although it is easy to make safe using this procedure I would not advocate it being done by inexperienced amateurs.

It's worth adding to that. Usually the words dilute to excess are used with any acid when this sort of thing is mentioned. What that means in practice is into a LOT more water and I do mean a lot compared with the amount of raw acid. This can mean stirring and adding relatively slowly with very strong concentrations. Stirring anyway.

Neutralising needs some checking as well. The reaction can be violent in some cases. Best check an MSDS there will always be suggestions. Interestingly disposal usually involves burying as acids generally break down to harmless substance pretty quickly.

John

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[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

With diluted acid you have to watch for splashes, the water dries and leaves concentrated acid spots. After dilution it needs neutralising, Washing soda is a good and cheap way of doing it.

Ian S C

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by Swarf, Mostly! on 11/09/2015 15:35:04:…

What observations/advice/comments have folks got regarding metallic mercury? I seem to live just about as far from any/all of the barometer refurbishers as UK geography permits!!!

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Guys who go panning for gold use mercury to aggregate the little gold flecks and pull it out of the other dross in the pan. And they pay quite a bit for mercury from the prospector supply shops. Prospectors might be as thin on the ground as barometer refurbishers in your neck of the woods though?

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Trouble is when the gold is dissolved in the mercury they burn the mixture and get the gold back that way.

Whole river systems are contaminated in South America as it is absorbed by river plants which are eaten by fish and fish are eaten by humans and animals so it gets into the food chain and affects everything.

It gives off vapour in enclosed spaces and if you spill it you will never pick it up again. It disappears in globules that get smaller and smaller. want to wreck something, put mercury in it!

Clive

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

If the mercury is boiled off in a proper retort, the mercury is recovered, leaving the gold.

Ian S C

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Long time ago but vaguely remember that spilt mercury can be gathered up with a piece of aluminium.

A spill in a lab from a type of porosity measuring machine. I'm pretty sure it was aluminium that was used.

John

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[Swarf, Mostly!Participant @swarfmostly]

Mercury will amalgamate with many metals – aluminium among them. That's why it's not allowed on aeroplanes – aviators get twitchy at the thought of their airframe dissolving away in mid-air!! (I've expressed that in a humorous way but it's really far from funny!!! )

When I was working for an avionics company we bid to supply a helicopter-borne equipment – one of the contract conditions was that we had to warrant absolutely that our equipment would not contain mercury, however enclosed.

As a consequence, I wonder whether that's also why Royal Mail won't accept mail containing mercury – at one time they had a pan-UK aeroplane shuttle service to move mail around the UK overnight, I don't know if that's still operating under the new regime? Or whether Royal Mail's refusal is simply on environmental grounds.

Best regards,

Swarf, Mostly!

Edited By Swarf, Mostly! on 14/09/2015 16:37:47

[Robin GrahamParticipant @robingraham42208]

Posted by Swarf, Mostly! on 14/09/2015 16:37:05:

As a consequence, I wonder whether that's also why Royal Mail won't accept mail containing mercury – at one time they had a pan-UK aeroplane shuttle service to move mail around the UK overnight, I don't know if that's still operating under the new regime? Or whether Royal Mail's refusal is simply on environmental grounds.

It's listed, along with Gallium, as a corrosive substance in their schedule of prohibited substances. As Gallium isn't especially harmful environmentally, but does have a tendency to embrittle other metals by diffusing into grain boundaries, sounds like you may well be right . Interesting!

Regards, Robin

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Mercury and aloominum.

[nigel jones 5Participant @nigeljones5]

The council do take it – just call round at their recycling depot and tell them you found it in your shed, they have protocol for dealing with it.

[W J HallParticipant @wjhall48713]

Not with a bang but a whimper…

In the end I followed the instructions on the council website, and took it to the depot, pointed out that it was very dangerous, booked it in with no more than slightly raised eyebrows, and they put it in the chemical vault.

In some ways I am surprised, for over a decade councils have been reducing the amount of waste they will take without charge. But as has been pointed out, it is probably less trouble for them to collect it, or accept it, than have it turning up all over the place. Also, I suppose that any item that has not already become an incident requiring the fire brigade is likely to be safe for trained personnel to take away.

I was a little concerned that hazardous waste handling at the council tip seemed to rely overmuch on whether things had hazard symbols or not, which older materials may not. But they did seem to work on a suspicion principle, I was asked what a tiny antique tin marked 'gold size' contained. Since according to Wikipedia size is 'any one of numerous specific substances', that may be a question without an answer.

The tip concerned seemed to have more staff than Bristol's Avonmouth tip, taking a more active role in dealing with the waste, in fact remarkably helpful. Bristol's hazardous waste section speaks only of Asbestos, Fluorescent tubes and paints and specifically says that they do not collect chemicals. I doubt if 'household chemicals' covers HF.

The cheapest quote for collection was from PHS Atherstone, at 185 pounds, ex. VAT for 'collection when in area'.

Other quotes were 250 and 350 pounds. It was obvious that collecting odd bottles of HF is not part of anybody's routine business, nobody read off a standard price list, they all had to make a formal quote..

So thank you to everyone who contributed suggestions. Even those that were pointing out something that I had already considered were a useful prod to looking at it again.

John Hall

[john carruthersParticipant @johncarruthers46255]

H&S were not around when I started work as an apprentice glazier. The boys job was scraping the paint and mercury silver off the backs of old mirrors and putting the scrapings in an old tin. Gradually over time blobs of mercury appeared in the bottom of the tin. It was then decanted into 'the mercury bottle' which sat on the shelf in the tea room with the tea makings. Every year or two 'the mercury man' came round to collect it and we'd divi up the proceeds.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I think that a lot of the withdrawl from use of particular substances is driven more by how much finds its way into landfill these days and thence to ground water rather than direct hazard.

Martin

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Too much water (to drink as well as a flood) is dangerous, why has it not been banned or a safety notice issued by the elfins?

[colin hawesParticipant @colinhawes85982]

I seem to remember a report on the danger of hydrofluoric acid being produced when certain rubbers used on cars have been on fire but I can't remember any details. Does anyone know more about that? Colin

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

This Link explains the hydroflouric acid in burnt out cars story.

Mike

[colin hawesParticipant @colinhawes85982]

Thank you Mike it must have been in 1981 that I read about it. Colin

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