FILM PROCESSING MANAGEMENT AND COLOUR PRINTING 10 If you do not want to do the process control yourself and purchase further equipment, you can subscribe to the manufacturer's laboratory check service. Silver recovery D iscarding chemicals in the drain pollutes the water and you can be prosecuted if you do not do something to reduce effluent silver polluting public waste treatment systems, as laid down by ecological controls. Check with your water supplier or local environmental authorities to ensure that you dispose photographic chemicals safely. Film fixing and bleach/fix solutions gradually accumulate an appreciable quantity of soluble silver salts from the materials they have been processing. Used black and white fixer can contain up to 4 g of silver per litre. It is possible to reclaim some of this metal from fixer solution and sell it to a silver refiner. Silver recovery is an option that you should consider not only for ecological but also for financial reasons, depending on the quantity of photographic materials you are processing. The method of silver recovery depends on the volume of disposable chemicals, the cost of the recovery equipment, and the time and