Utility sink with septic system?

[Highbeam]

Never do it. Cities around Puget Sound don't have the treatment capacity to filter this stuff out, especially pharmaceuticals and drugs. They are showing up in alarming numbers in local fish and sealife now.

We do have the ability to remove many things but those drugs could just as easily have passed through a human and been deposited conventionally. Not the issue here but perhaps stop taking pharmaceuticals and drugs! I’m having a hard time putting this into words. The drugs are going to make it into the sewer or septic, can’t stop it so long as people are eating them.

 

[RobbieB]

What? Stop taking your heart and BP medicine and just die?

Yeah that will solve the problem for sure...

 

[Highbeam]

What? Stop taking your heart and BP medicine and just die?

Yeah that will solve the problem for sure...

It will solve the problem of these chemicals in the waste stream. Of course, not all of us take medications...yet.

As far as the utility sink. I use it to wash my hands and my pug. Some dishes and some cooling water. Nothing I fear dumping on the lawn.

 

[begreen]

We do have the ability to remove many things but those drugs could just as easily have passed through a human and been deposited conventionally. Not the issue here but perhaps stop taking pharmaceuticals and drugs! I’m having a hard time putting this into words. The drugs are going to make it into the sewer or septic, can’t stop it so long as people are eating them.

Actually a few systems are much more effective than others. Not perfect, but much better. They do tertiary treatment via anaerobic digestion. Tacoma and the KC Renton plant have these facilities. Trouble is that most smaller municipalities and unincorporated areas only do secondary treatment. All the more reason to not dump stuff down the drain.

 

[Ashful]

So.... what do you folks do with your paint thinner? Anti-freeze? All of the other chemicals you're bound to collect, if you're the average DIY homeowner?

 

[begreen]

So.... what do you folks do with your paint thinner? Anti-freeze? All of the other chemicals you're bound to collect, if you're the average DIY homeowner?

Our county has a hazardous waste pickup event once or twice a year that we bring it to. The last thing one wants to do is dump this stuff into the environment.

 

[Ashful]

Ours does that, too. It’s open about 3 hours per month, in the middle of the work day when I’m miles away. Not exactly accessible.

 

[begreen]

Ours does that, too. It’s open about 3 hours per month, in the middle of the work day when I’m miles away. Not exactly accessible.

Speak with them. We've managed to get some nice improvements to our system by organizing and putting good proposals on the table. Get together with neighbors if necessary and find someone retired or someone that telecommutes and works at home and is willing to drop off items.

 

[Ashful]

Speak with them. We've managed to get some nice improvements to our system by organizing and putting good proposals on the table. Get together with neighbors if necessary and find someone retired or someone that telecommutes and works at home and is willing to drop off items.

I will do that. I hate dumping my tractor coolant and radiator flush chemical into the septic. I try to burn most paint thinner, by pouring over something absorbent (straw or wood shavings), but that gets messy and tedious.

My wife does use miles of bleach, doing about a million small loads of laundry every week, and our dishwasher runs into it every day, but I don’t see any ways around that.

 

[begreen]

Most local garages will take coolant and used oil. The rest is lifestyle. We haven't used bleach in laundry for decades.

 

[Highbeam]

I will do that. I hate dumping my tractor coolant and radiator flush chemical into the septic. I try to burn most paint thinner, by pouring over something absorbent (straw or wood shavings), but that gets messy and tedious.

My wife does use miles of bleach, doing about a million small loads of laundry every week, and our dishwasher runs into it every day, but I don’t see any ways around that.

Holy crud! Do not dump anything into your septic. It just goes to the ground anyway so if you were going to dump it into the septic, dump it on the ground instead which won’t kill your septic system and risk even greater cost and pollution. Ideally you would recycle all of these things but it has become very very difficult to do so. They have even closed most used oil recycle stations in my area.

Look at the chemical. Antifreeze for example is not that bad and you shouldn’t have too much to deal with.

The right answer is to barrel all of this until you can take it to a hazardous waste dump.

Oh and I’m sure you’re not trashing those cfl bulbs or batteries either, right? AA batteries are not supposed to go in the trash.

 

[Ashful]

Holy crud! Do not dump anything into your septic. It just goes to the ground anyway so if you were going to dump it into the septic, dump it on the ground instead which won’t kill your septic system and risk even greater cost and pollution. Ideally you would recycle all of these things but it has become very very difficult to do so. They have even closed most used oil recycle stations in my area.

Look at the chemical. Antifreeze for example is not that bad and you shouldn’t have too much to deal with.

The right answer is to barrel all of this until you can take it to a hazardous waste dump.

Oh and I’m sure you’re not trashing those cfl bulbs or batteries either, right? AA batteries are not supposed to go in the trash.

Oil is actually one of the things that's easy to get rid of, here. Everyone knows someone with a waste oil burner. In fact, I just dropped off 5 gal with a buddy last week.

Batteries? Yes, we toss them in the trash, here. Not sure what else one would do with them, our recycling list doesn't include batteries. Never checked for CFL's, we don't use 'em.

https://www.republicservices.com/recycling-guide

Antifreeze, I get 2 gallons from the tractor every second year. But I also do a radiator flush each time I change the antifreeze, so there's that stuff, which I've always assumed must be nastier than antifreeze.

 

[Highbeam]

So many questions that we don’t ask because we don’t want to know the answers. Save your septic! It’s for residential wastewater, nothing else. What you do with those chemicals is up to you but your septic is a very bad idea.

 

[fbelec]

here in mass if you buy oil or antifreeze from a auto parts store they have to take the used stuff from you. and car batteries they charge a core fee if you don't take the old one back to them. the town hall takes the cfl bulbs and rechargeable batteries and lithium and alkaline batteries of all kinds

 

[Ashful]

here in mass if you buy oil or antifreeze from a auto parts store they have to take the used stuff from you. and car batteries they charge a core fee if you don't take the old one back to them. the town hall takes the cfl bulbs and rechargeable batteries and lithium and alkaline batteries of all kinds

I think the car battery core charge probably applies everywhere. We were talking AA’s, alkaline stuff.

 

[begreen]

Locally we've worked as a community to dramatically increase our recycling rate and options. For batteries. We have a small container to collect alkalines, then take it to our local ACE hardware's service center for drop off when convenient. This is also our local Stihl, Echo and Craftsman dealer so it's quite convenient and right in town. Local auto parts store takes lead acid batteries of any kind, no charge. It's a win -win situation. They get more customer traffic + appreciation and less crap heads into the landfill.

What's the closest decent sized town?

 

[Ashful]

I can drop off batteries at work, in fact I just dropped a 12V lead acid UPS battery this morning. Just never thought to bother with small alkaline batteries, but I’m sure they’d take them, if I asked.

 

[begreen]

Good deal. When all of us start taking small steps, they can add up and become giant strides.