Chemicals and septic systems
Rick DeShon
Hi All!
I do a moderate amount of woodworking and am concerned about dumping
some of the chemicals used in the is process (e.g., paint, used stain,
polyurathane, mineral spirits, etc...) into my septic system. What
is the effect of cleaning brushes, paint pans, and other prep
materials and washing the residue into the septic tank?
What happens to paint in the septic tank? Is it decomposable or does
it just gunk up the system. Also, we're not talking about gallons of
chemicals. Just moderately frequent cleanup residue.
I look forward to your comments.
Thanks,
Rick
Roger Loving
In <3434e18c...@news.msu.edu> des...@pilot.msu.edu (Rick DeShon)
writes:
beasties that live there have the job of eating the waste and
converting it to less active material. They are fragile and have a slow
growth rate compared with the aerobic bacteria in your leach field.
Both can be killed with hydrocarbons.....Best to stop with the
chemical dumps to your septic or you will be having problems. The old
rule is to put in only natural waste products from your own body. Even
toilet paper is to be used in moderation. Nothing else.
Roger Loving
Dave Clark
Rick DeShon <des...@pilot.msu.edu> wrote in article
<3434e18c...@news.msu.edu>...
> Hi All!
>
> I do a moderate amount of woodworking and am concerned about dumping
> some of the chemicals used in the is process (e.g., paint, used stain,
> polyurathane, mineral spirits, etc...) into my septic system. What
> is the effect of cleaning brushes, paint pans, and other prep
> materials and washing the residue into the septic tank?
Some of these (paint thinner, used stain) will kill the beneficial bacteria
in your septic tank. Others (Latex Paint) will clog your leach field.
That which is not organic waste will eventually leach into the ground water
and contaminate your, or surrounding wells.
>
> What happens to paint in the septic tank? Is it decomposable or does
> it just gunk up the system.
It just gunk's up the system.
I read an article in some woodworking magazine about a year or so ago that
recommended as the most environmental way to clean brushes etc. if you have
a septic system is to wash the brushes in a bucket of water (assuming latex
paint), and then let the water evaporate. For oil based paints you can
re-use thinner keeping it in a sealed container. Run it through a filter
(coffee, cheesecloth) and store it again for future use.
For disposal of old latex paint open the can and let it dry, then dispose
of it with your regular trash. Oil based products are best disposed of at
a toxic waste facility, or if your community sponsors a toxic waste pickup.
--
-------------
Dave Clark - Data General Corp. Westboro, MA
Opinions expressed are my own. Any resemblance to other opinions living or
dead are purely coincidental.
Dave_...@nospam.dg!.com remove nospam and ! to reply
DeeAnna
Rick wrote:
> I do a moderate amount of woodworking and am concerned about dumping
some of the chemicals used in the is process (e.g., paint, used stain,
we're not talking about gallons of chemicals. Just moderately frequent
cleanup residue.
Sorry to sound a bit critical, but why are you putting any amount of
flammable, toxic chemicals into any waste treatment system? Only human
waste and toilet paper can be properly digested in a septic system. The
products you list should never be put down the drain because:
they can gunk up your plumbing and septic system and even cause fires or
explosions
paints, stains and such stuff are complicated molecles that are slow to
break down and may pass through a septic system unchanged and thus
contaminate ground water
they can kill off the microbes that do the work of digesting wastes
I'm a woodworker too -- and a former industrial-wastewater treatment
engineer. I put the stuff you list in open containers, put the containers
in a safe place outdoors, let the solvents (water or petroleum
distillates) evaporate, then put the solid residue in the trash.
DeeAnna
Dean Osgood
> Rick wrote:
> > I do a moderate amount of woodworking and am concerned about dumping
> some of the chemicals used in the is process (e.g., paint, used stain,
> polyurathane, mineral spirits, etc...) into my septic system. ... Also,
VERY BAD IDEA
This will kill the good bacteria in your septic tank
The old rule I use is
Don't put anything into the septic system that you havn't eaten first.
It gets worse
When you kill off the bacteria you will build up solids real fast in the
tank and if the tank overflows with solids, they will run out and plug up
your drain field. That is VERY EXPENSIVE to fix and if you only have one
drainfield site will render your home uninhabitable.
I would suggest
1) get your tank pumped NOW
2) get a proper outside flamable storage facility (heck even a old tin shed)
3) save the old containers and pour the "spoil" back into
4) a couple times a year haul it to an approved disposal facility.
Dean Osgood
--
Dean Osgood
Optical Metrology
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
The opinions expressed in the article above are not necessarily
those of NASA or any of its contractors. The poster is respon-
sible for the accuracy of the statements above.
Rick DeShon
Okay, okay, I get the message!
Seriously, thanks for the clear advice concerning the dangerous
effects of this practice and the helpful suggestions for disposing of
chemicals.
I seriously doubt that the small quantities of chemicals that I have
put into my septic system have caused any lasting problems. However,
from this day forward I vow to never put anything into the septic
system that I haven't eaten.
Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure how my wife will
react to me not using soap for showers, dishwashing, and clothes
washing. And, I guess that water conditioner is out of the question
so we'll have to get use to hard water.... ;)
Thanks again for all the advice!
Rick
Rustystruc
In article <34391928...@news.msu.edu>, des...@pilot.msu.edu (Rick
DeShon) writes:
>
>Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure how my wife will
>react to me not using soap for showers, dish washing, and clothes
>washing. And, I guess that water conditioner is out of the question
>so we'll have to get use to hard water.... ;)
>
>
>Thanks again for all the advice!
>
>Rick
>
>
Or get radical and have a grey water leach field put in, And if you have
already dumped a little of those chemicals you may be sorry if you don't
pump and start over .As a minimum put some yeast(not store bought but make
a yeast starter at home with local yeast (if you don't understand this ask)
in your tank say once a week for a couple of months(rid x lovers tell it to
some one who hasn't lived on septic most of his life.)<G>
good luck petroleum distillates are very hard on septic systems,
unfortunately the damage may take 2 years to manifest if you have only 2
people living there and a big tank.
Rusty Wade TRUCK460 Wiley Sanders Truck Lines
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thank you
October 6, 1997
Robin Driscoll
Can you tell us more on making a yeast starter at home?
Thanks, Robin
On 7 Oct 1997 18:04:17 GMT, rusty...@aol.com (Rustystruc) wrote:
>
>Or get radical and have a grey water leach field put in, And if you have
>already dumped a little of those chemicals you may be sorry if you don't
>pump and start over .As a minimum put some yeast(not store bought but make
>a yeast starter at home with local yeast (if you don't understand this ask)
>in your tank say once a week for a couple of months(rid x lovers tell it to
>some one who hasn't lived on septic most of his life.)<G>
>{snip}
--
replace nojunk with robind to reply by email
Bryce Grevemeyer
JMH wrote:
>
<snip>
> In one house of ours we had the septic tank
> pumped. On the top of the water was this
> four inch layer of white scum and I asked
> the septic pumper just what was that. Soap
> scum, he replied. The hot bath water melts
> the fats in the soap and they resolidify in
> the cooler septic tank. So, only liquid
> soaps for us after that.
>
<snip>
>
> +-----------------------------------------------------------+
> | To email me, write to jmhinds at mindspring dot com |
> | |
> | http://www.mindspring.com/~thinds/jmh/ |
> | |
> +-----------------------------------------------------------+
I don't know much about septic tanks, (I just got my
first one). However, I would have thought that the
white material (particularly if it was four inches thick)
would more likely have been mainly the remains of
toilet paper rather than soap scum.
Yes soap is made from various oils and fats, but it is
chemical reacted with a caustic material. It does not
"melt" and resolidify, with temperature, it disolves
in water.
--
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Patricia A. Busse
Just curious about water softeners and septic tanks. We have a very small
tank and EXTREMELY hard water. One plumber told us that water softeners
(salt-based) would kill the beneficial bacteria in our tank and render it
useless. He suggested a french drain, but given that we are 30 yards from a
lake, I don't think I want to dump all that salt water in the lake. The
house is a weekend house (for now) so the magnet method wouldn't help up
either, and I am wondering if anybody has other ideas besides salt or
magnets for soft water?
Patti
DeeAnna wrote in message ...
The
>solution to soap scum is to soften your water which replaces the "hard
>water" ions with sodium ions that don't gunk up your tub, clothes, or
>septic tank. But then, there's the quandry that sodium ions in large
>amounts are not good for the soil, but that's another debate for another
>day....
>
>DeeAnna
Roger Loving
In <61f2c6$g73$1...@nntp2.ba.best.com> nos...@nospam.org writes:
>Rather than waiting for trouble to manifest itself, how would one
>check the septic tank to be sure it's operating correctly?
>
I know of no way to check a septic to make sure it is working
right. If you are really concerned, then I would just pay to have it
pumped. It is not very expensive and you need to do it every few years
anyway. That way you can relax and not worry.
Roger Loving
DeeAnna
Patricia A. Busse wrote:
>... I am wondering if anybody has other ideas besides salt or magnets for
soft water?
Please don't waste your time and money buying magnets to "soften" water.
It's a scam! Seriously! Magnets have been sold as a panacea for everything
from getting better gas mileage to softening water to treating muscle
injuries to curing cancer.
The only everyday situation I know of that is truly helped by magnets is
when they're fed to cattle. They can eat nails or other small metal items
that will perforate intestines and stomachs -- a "cow" magnet minimizes
this hazard.
Other options for softening water include distillation, reverse osmosis,
or electrodialysis -- all are methods which are expensive, sloooowwww, or
unpractical for home water softening.
Regarding salt poisoning of a septic system: Keep in mind that I'm not a
super-expert on this subject. But I am an engineer with wastewater
treatment experience.
Basically, my opinion is that softening water is not a big issue in the
care and feeding of septic systems. The sodium concentrations from a
softener are relatively constant and are fairly small, especiallly if you
use an "on-demand" softener that regenerates the resin only after a preset
volume of water has passed through the softener. It's important to "tell"
this kind of softener what the hardness of your water is to further
minimize salt waste. Older or less expensive kinds of softeners regenerate
on time -- like once a week whether you were home using water all week or
were gone on vacation.
It's major change that upsets the "bugs" in wastewater treatment systems.
You have to give them time to adapt to changes in wastewater composition.
Don't expect them to digest new waste materials -- even "nontoxic" and
"biodegradeable"ones -- if this stuff suddenly arrives in large
quantities or in a concentrated form. The industrial wastewater system I
worked with occasionally "died" when there was a massive change in the
composition of the wastewater. But it tolerated moderate day-to-day
variations in the composition of the "regular" wastewater fairly well --
and this was wastewater that was _much_ tougher to clean up than typical
household sewerage.
The issues to_ really_ worry about are these: (1) pump your septic tank
when it needs it every few years, NOT when it's totally plugged, and (2)
put only human wastes, water, toilet paper, and (okay, okay!) some soap
into the septic system.
So... Garbage disposals have no place in a house with a septic system --
put food wastes in a compost pile or in the garbage. Some people even keep
toilet paper out of the septic system by keeping a discreet lidded
container by the potty. Others eliminate most of the soap and relatively
clean water by treating "gray" water separately from "black" water (the
stuff that _really_ needs to be digested in a septic system.)
DeeAnna
Donald E. Scott
Kirk Kerekes wrote:
>
> In article <61hd3q$m...@camel18.mindspring.com>, "Patricia A. Busse"
> <pab...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
> . Just curious about water softeners and septic tanks. We have a very small
> . tank and EXTREMELY hard water. One plumber told us that water softeners
> . (salt-based) would kill the beneficial bacteria in our tank and render it
> . useless.
When we had a house with a septic system we were told to flush a cake of
yeast with live bacteria dow the toilet to replace the bacteria in the
system that might be killed off by chemicals that we used in washing and
cleaning. We never had any trouble with our septic system in 28 years
so it must have worked.
Annis Scott
Dion Hollenbeck
>> Donald E Scott writes:
DES> When we had a house with a septic system we were told to flush a
DES> cake of yeast with live bacteria dow the toilet to replace the
DES> bacteria in the system that might be killed off by chemicals that
DES> we used in washing and cleaning. We never had any trouble with
DES> our septic system in 28 years so it must have worked.
Just to be picky, whoever told you was wrong. While it may be useful
to flush yeast cakes down into the septic system, yeast cakes do not
contain live bacteria. Yeast cakes contain yeast, nothing else. In
fact, manufacturers of yeast go to extreme lengths to ensure that
yeast cakes contain nothing but yeast, and only the strain of yeast
that is desirable for the purpose for which the yeast is labelled
(i.e. bread making, beer making, etc.)
So if what makes a septic tank go is bacteria, flushing yeast down the
toilet will not help. If, on the other hand, yeast is what is the
active agent in a septic system, then yeast will help.
dion (brewer, not septic expert)
--
Dion Hollenbeck (619)597-7080x164 Email: hol...@vigra.com
http://www.vigra.com/~hollen
Sr. Software Engineer - Vigra Div. of Visicom Labs San Diego, California
Bryce Grevemeyer
Donald E. Scott wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> When we had a house with a septic
> yeast with live bacteria dow the
> system that might be killed off by
> cleaning. We never had any trouble
> so it must have worked.
>
A yeast cake does not contain bacteria
(we hope), it contains yeast. Yeast
is a rather particular critter. I likes
only sugars, and at that, only certain
kinds of sugar. After it has converted
al fermentable sugars to carbon dioxide
and alcohol, it dies. In most septic
systems, sugars make up only a small
part of the material there.
The yeast doesn't do any harm, but
it doesn't do any good.
Your septic system does however, get a
healthly dose of the microbes that you
need for decomposition, every time you
use the toilet.
The stories of putting yeast in septic
sytems, (or in compost piles) amounts
to a relatively harmless old wives tale.
Joseph Roberts
Try not to use chlorine based cleaners if you have a septic tank.
Chlorine is a powerful killer of bacteria. After all, why do you think
they use it in swimming pools?
My Best ---- Joe ---- Mass.
My home page:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/joe_roberts/farmerjo.htm
R. Beasley
This thread has had all the old canards about septic systems
along with some good information. AFAIK, yeast does not help a
septic system, not the least because what works in a septic
system is anaerobic bacteria, plus the septic field is usually
too cold for yeast to ferment properly. Not to mention that you
don't really want to have the stuff in there fermenting anyway.
Also AFAIK, the thing about not putting anything in that hasn't
been through your body first is more appropriate for marine
toilet systems (on boats), where they don't even put toilet paper
in them. Soap, water softeners etc. are ok in a regular septic
system. =20
A drain field is a good idea for excess water, such as from
washing machines. I would not want to have a garbage disposal
used in a septic system, as it will probably result in having to
pump it more often.
But I really decided to answer this thread because=20
dos...@proxima.gsfc.nasa.gov (Dean Osgood) wrote:
>2) get a proper outside flammable storage facility (heck even a old tin =
shed)
There are currently AFIAK not any parameters (such as NFPA) for
outside detached flammable storage. Inside storage or attached
storage, yes, but not outdoor storage.
The reason for using any kind of flammable storage is to limit
damage to property in case of a fire. So a detached shed would
be good, but an attached garage (especially with a gas fired
appliance such as a water heater in it) would not be as good. =20
You don't really have to have flammable materials inside of
anything at all, unless you are where it freezes, and they are
things like paint that shouldn't get frozen. The best way to
store flammables is to severely limit the amount on hand to what
you are going to use at that time.
=46or the suggested disposal of latex materials (i.e. washing
brushes and the letting the water evaporate) you don't need a
flammable storage shed because water with latex paint in it isn't
really flammable.
grandma Rosalie
Tom Ruta
rbea...@mindspring.com (R. Beasley ) wrote:
>This thread has had all the old canards about septic systems
<sensible comment on yeast snipped>...
>Also AFAIK, the thing about not putting anything in that hasn't
>been through your body first is more appropriate for marine
>toilet systems (on boats), where they don't even put toilet paper
>in them. Soap, water softeners etc. are ok in a regular septic
>system.
Not quite right. There are better TPs for septic systems.
namely those that break down faster than those that don't.
You can easily test this by putting a couple of sheets of
TP into a jar and shaking. It should dissolve.
As for water softners, the main issue is not salt, but the
volume (up to a couple hundered gallons/recharge) of water
which flushes the septic tank before it has a chance to
break down the solids. Good way to gum up the field.
>
>A drain field is a good idea for excess water, such as from
>washing machines.
By drain field, I assume you mean a French drain or other
grey water system. It might be fine in certain areas, but
the phosphates will leach into the water table and/or lake.
Not good. Also, if it goes through the septic first, you
shorten the "processing time" and will kill off your field
in no time.
> I would not want to have a garbage disposal
>used in a septic system, as it will probably result in having to
>pump it more often.
>
A garbage disposal does fill the tank faster, but in the
absence of grease, it's not a big deal. A properly sized
system should have no problems at all. Besides, most folks
don't pump their tanks often enough - that's why we are
starting to see mandatory (legislated) pumping timetables.
I'd rather have one of those than a washer due to the water
issues.
Tom
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