As part of the drive towards environmental protection and recycling, companies are being put under increasing legislative pressure to achieve stringent waste management targets for the disposal and recycling of business by-products. This is particularly the case for materials deemed to be hazardous and applies to a range of industrial chemicals and by-products typically produced by industry, including materials produced in the process of photography and printing.

Photographic processing and the environment 

Essentially much of the process behind traditional photographic printing involves the use of strong chemicals such as neat hydrochloric acid which was traditionally poured directly down the dark room sink and would end up in the sewers and eventually in the rivers. Naturally this constituted something of an environmental hazard, with adverse results being seen, notably in the River Thames, some ten or more years ago.

The Government steps in!

The Government were quick to step in, however, when the environmental lobby became sufficiently vocal and evidence was raised to show how business was contributing to an environmental time-bomb. The Water Framework Directive - part of a European approach - presented a list of substances that damaged the aquatic environment and found photographic processing products to be one of them. A list of stringent controls and measures were then drawn up and implemented to govern how these - and other materials - were disposed of and managed safely in future.

Managing the problem

Photographic chemical residue is now not only deemed to be polluting, but it is also deemed to be hazardous waste and therefore unsuitable for landfill sites. Recycling is key and organisations have sprung up, dedicated to the management of this process. For many years now, the organisations involved in photographic reproduction and printing - including labs, hospitals, individual users and photographic processors have known that there were significant advantages in recovering silver from analogue film and the printing process. Specialised companies have refined the waste haulage process and there are a number of silver recovery operators and national recyclers now supporting the recycling drive in the photographic industry.

Gaining accreditation

Many of these now conform to the coveted ISO 14001 accreditation - environmental management - and this is an indicator as to just how far the industry has progressed.

The silver can be recovered from a number of materials - solvents, photochemistry residues, engages jets etc. Costs are competitive because of large scale usage - leading to shared economies and the resulting silver recovery is valuable in itself.

The future

Certainly for as long as Britain and Europe continues to be consumer driven, the need for recycling and waste management companies will only continue to grow. Many of these companies now specialise in a number of different recycling processes for hazardous waste, including vegetable oil by-products from the catering industry and specific chemicals from manufacturing processes. They offer sensible and cost-effective solutions for organisations who wish to outsource their waste management processes to specialists, whilst ensuring that they adhere to the government legislation that allows them to continue operating.