Waste water from wet tumbling

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azar

azar

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I've been contemplating moving to wet tumbling with stainless steel pins and a rotary tumbler. One thing that I've often wondered about is what to do with the resulting waste water. Do you just dump it down the drain? I've wondered how "toxic" the resulting waste water would be and how much effect it would have on the local water treatment plant...

I was reminded of this after viewing this discussion on disposing of tumbling media. In it a statement was made that lead dust could be safely flushed down the toilet where others strongly disagreed that it wouldn't be a good idea.

So what then, do people who wet tumble do with the resulting waste water? Wouldn't this pose the same or a similar risk to flushing "lead dust"?

Thanks for any enlightenment you can give.
 
Do not dump waste water down the drain, especially if you have septic system.

- Line a container with plastic bag (you can reuse thin plastic bags from produce section of market) and pour waste water from wet tumbling.

- Cover with small holes/screen if necessary (to keep pets/animals from drinking) and let it evaporate.

- Remove plastic bag with dried residue and discard in the trash.
 
Not sure what toxic materials you think are in the small amount of waste water from fired case tumbling, but my hat's off to you for raising the question. Guess it depends mostly on how much waste water we're talking about. When I was involved with the mfg. of printed circuit boards, we had to re-cycle the waste water from washing those boards that went thru the flux/soldering process. Of course, we used about 250gal. of water each day, which was sent thru a media separator and collected in them. The separators were then sent for metal recovery centers about once every 6 months or so.

How much do you plan to tumble?
 
There are EPA certified labs that will test a sample of your tumbler waste water for hazardous materials. The EPA will have a proper disposal procedure based on the test results. The costs involved will likely erase any savings from reloading.
I dump mine on the driveway, rinse the tumbler with a hose and forget about it.
 
Folks
The only EPA method for disposing of lead and similar waste is via flushing it it the toilet.

This is discussed in depth in the EPA RRP training.

You don't saint to use a drain as the traps can potentially keep the lead in the bottom.

Dumping it on the drive or outside is a huge no no.

The toilet is the only place that ensures it's flushed out. For public sewerage the lead is filtered out at the waste water plant. For septic the lead settles to the bottom of your septic tank. When you have it pumped that waste is taken to a facility to make it to the waste water plant.

Please please please look his up if you don't believe me. And please stop giving bad advice that can get people lead poisoning.
 
Hokie_PhD said:
Folks
The only EPA method for disposing of lead and similar waste is via flushing it it the toilet.

This is discussed in depth in the EPA RRP training.

You don't saint to use a drain as the traps can potentially keep the lead in the bottom.

Dumping it on the drive or outside is a huge no no.

The toilet is the only place that ensures it's flushed out. For public sewerage the lead is filtered out at the waste water plant. For septic the lead settles to the bottom of your septic tank. When you have it pumped that waste is taken to a facility to make it to the waste water plant.

Please please please look his up if you don't believe me. And please stop giving bad advice that can get people lead poisoning.
Click to expand...

This is NOT a universal EPA guidance for lead-contaminated liquid waste disposal. For example, in the Lead Abatement for Workers training materials, section 8-18, it specifically calls out to NOT dispose of lead contaminated water by pouring down the toilet, and that doing so MAY only be allowed under certain conditions, and defers to local and state regulation for doing so. The same guidance is given by the EPA on page 22 of Lead Safe Renovation, Repair, & Painting.

Check with local wastewater treatment before putting it down the toilet. If their system allows for it, send it down the toilet. If it does not, then they'll give instruction for disposal.

Dumping on the ground is a a huge no-no, and can readily result in fines, let alone the negative potential health consequences for you, your family, and anyone who might live there after you. Evaporating can work, but the residual dust is an increased risk, the bags will require appropriate disposal at an authorized site, and of course, you run the risk of the evaporating "pot" being disturbed either by something drinking from it or by someone knocking into it and aspirating the lead dust once it's dried. Think about that blast of trashcan stink you sometimes get when you tie a trashbag shut... Now imagine that stink is toxic lead dust instead of odor... Not something worth messing with.
 
The municipal utility has no problem with household quantities of water used for wet tumbling being put down the drain. Of course, the town was the site of a lead smelter for about the last fifty years so when you consider its emissions against a trace of plumbite in a quart of water, the local environmental folks have bigger fish to fry.
 
Bds is dead on the money. Best to place in a plastic lined hole and let water evaporate out and then dispose. It takes all of us to do what we can. Google dead zone and mississippi river.
 
While I can understand the arguments for small amount of waste water going down the drain, this is the High Road and there are millions of us reloaders with popularity of wet tumbling on the rise. Imagine new young reloaders who may be pro-environment reading this thread ... we should provide proper "High Road" guidance for our next generation of reloaders who undoubtedly will meet even more fierce resistance from the antis/green movement and they will need as much support from us as possible now or they will have more difficult time arguing for the sport/hobby of reloading/shooting.

I worked for state public health licencing and certification agency that conducted state/federal surveys of healthcare facilities the past 7 years. Just because the "government" tells us it's safe, does not necessarily mean it is so.

Before family moved to our current retirement location in Northwest coast with clean water and air, we shared our California central valley regional office building with state drinking water quality department and all the staff confirmed that drinking water in the city's 20+ wells all had significant levels of dissolved metals and chemicals from decades of pesticide/ag/industrial chemical use and the "government" had to keep raising the allowable levels over the decades to deem them "safe to drink".

Think about that.

The head of drinking water department told me whatever we put in the ground will eventually make to the water table and his entire staff refused to drink water from city/county wells after seeing the water quality reports.

At our retirement property, we have a shallow well at 47 feet (common for this area) but with average 100"+ inches of annual rain, our water quality report comes back with no detectable metals/chemicals/biologicals. Since this is the property our daughter will keep and grandchildren will likely grow up at while drinking shallow well water, we won't use any toxic chemicals and use bio-degradable whenever possible. All the neighbors around us have similar perspectives and many raise chickens and goats to control insects and keep vegetation under control.

When I lived in the city, my lead level rose to 8 while shooting at an indoor range and to 12 when I did extensive load testing during a 6 month period. Since my lead level dropped when I stopped shooting at the indoor range while still reloading and processing/dry tumbling spent brass wearing 3M 2091 respirator outdoors, my doctor deemed it was indoor range shooting that was the culprit for my lead level increase - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ealth-information.307170/page-10#post-9616073

Chances are, current reloading components we use likely won't have too much toxic chemicals but I am planning to wet tumble using FA Platinum wet tumbler and evaporate the waste water to contain the residue inside the plastic bag to be sent to the landfill. Over time, like everything else in the landfill, things will break down but at least won't directly affect the shallow well water we will drink from in the near future.
 
Just how cautious should we be about the minuscule amount of lead that might be in tumbler waste water? Should the tumbler be placed on a containment pallet in case of a spill? Do we need to wear respirators when shooting and reloading? How should the filters be disposed of? After shooting or reloading there are no doubt traces of lead on our clothes, what do we do about the waste water from the wash machine? The wash may not remove all the lead so what about the dryer vent? How do we decontaminate the washer and dryer?
What about the water used to wash our hands or shower after shooting or reloading? I cooked a pheasant a few days ago and found a piece of bird shot when I was eating it, should I be concerned?
 
Let me say this.

While many of us have driven above the posted speed limits and perhaps driven sleepy to the point of nodding off, most of us would tell a new young driver in "High Road" manner to "observe all traffic laws" ;)
 
I honestly don't know what the waste water will contain or if it will have any negative consequences on the local water supply (one reason why the word "toxic" is in quotes). :) I do believe that tumbler waste water is more likely to have a negative impact on the water table/local water supply than old media being discarded in the trash can that ends up in a landfill. I just don't know if it really is something to concern oneself about.

People discuss tricks to keep the dust from a tumbler using traditional media, including using mineral spirits and old dryer sheets and using a tumbler that doesn't have a vented lid. All for the sake of not inhaling lead particles and what not. Unless that's just another case of some little red hens claiming the sky is falling, it stands to reason that the waste water from wet tumbling should be treated with equal care. I just don't know if there is anything special that needs to be done or what people who wet tumble do with the waste water.

And no, drunkenpoacher, I don't think any one here (yourself included) believes the extreme measures you highlight are required. :)

Honestly, while the results from wet tumbling with stainless pins look fantastic I really don't know if it's worth all the trouble. Sparkling brass inside and out, with clean primer pockets to boot is nice but it sure seems like adding extra work for little realized benefit. Especially if what bds details is truly the appropriate way to dispose of the waste water. I think I'd come to despise brass prep even more... :D

Thanks for all the feedback so far.
 
bds wrote:
Imagine new young reloaders who may be pro-environment reading this thread ... we should provide proper "High Road" guidance for our next generation of reloaders...
Click to expand...

Well, as I clearly said in my post, I contacted the city (who operates the wastewater facilities in the city) and asked them what to do. They said household quantities of such waster should be poured down the drain.

Contact the responsible authorities and follow their recommendation; I don't know how you characterize that as anything other than "proper 'High Road' guidance".
 
Now you guys have me wondering what I am doing to the environment if I don't pick up by brass.

The first rain after they hit the ground and I've turned my yard into an environmental disaster zone and forget about shooting a few clays, I'll kill every living animal nearby and down stream all the way to the gulf.

It's too bad man made this deadly metal, I am sure if it were a naturally occurring element that we could mine from the earth it would be acceptable to return it to where it came from...

If your going to loose sleep over it, turn it in with your used oil at your nearby auto parts store.
 
azar said:
I honestly don't know what the waste water will contain or if it will have any negative consequences on the local water supply (one reason why the word "toxic" is in quotes). :) I do believe that tumbler waste water is more likely to have a negative impact on the water table/local water supply than old media being discarded in the trash can that ends up in a landfill. I just don't know if it really is something to concern oneself about.

People discuss tricks to keep the dust from a tumbler using traditional media, including using mineral spirits and old dryer sheets and using a tumbler that doesn't have a vented lid. All for the sake of not inhaling lead particles and what not. Unless that's just another case of some little red hens claiming the sky is falling, it stands to reason that the waste water from wet tumbling should be treated with equal care. I just don't know if there is anything special that needs to be done or what people who wet tumble do with the waste water.

And no, drunkenpoacher, I don't think any one here (yourself included) believes the extreme measures you highlight are required. :)

Honestly, while the results from wet tumbling with stainless pins look fantastic I really don't know if it's worth all the trouble. Sparkling brass inside and out, with clean primer pockets to boot is nice but it sure seems like adding extra work for little realized benefit. Especially if what bds details is truly the appropriate way to dispose of the waste water. I think I'd come to despise brass prep even more... :D

Thanks for all the feedback so far.
Click to expand...
The thread was starting to sound chicken littleish, or maybe more like a vegan with matching leather purse and shoes.
Wet tumbling isn't much trouble. For handgun brass I rarely use pins. Lemi-shine or citric acid and a little simple green with warm water get it clean. It dries in a few hours on the heated floor in my shop in the winter or in a basket outside in the summer. For rifle brass or badly tarnished handgun brass I use pins. It only takes a few extra minutes to separate them out with a magnet.
For the waste water, dispose of it as you see fit.
 
hdwhit said:
Well, as I clearly said in my post, I contacted the city (who operates the wastewater facilities in the city) and asked them what to do. They said household quantities of such waster should be poured down the drain.

Contact the responsible authorities and follow their recommendation; I don't know how you characterize that as anything other than "proper 'High Road' guidance".
Click to expand...
While your response may be correct for city sewer system that drains into wastewater treatment plant, it may not provide full guidance.

Since some THR members/guests reading this thread may have private wells and septic systems, my response was more general, all inclusive guidance. The Safe Drinking Water Act does not protect private wells. EPA’s rules only apply to “public drinking water systems” - https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/200024OD.PDF?Dockey=200024OD.PDF

So while dumping wet tumbling wastewater down the drain into city sewer system may be OK as the wastewater will be treated at the treatment plant according to latest "government guidelines", things we dump down the drain into septic systems won't receive the same level of treatment and potentially affect the water quality of private wells, especially shallow wells.

So my "High Road" guidance response was, if you want to minimize adding to the environmental impact and keep your private well as safe as possible, to evaporate wet tumbling wastewater and send dried residue confined by reused grocery produce plastic bag (and further contained inside kitchen trash bag) to the landfill which has leakage containment.

drunkenpoacher said:
For the waste water, dispose of it as you see fit.
Click to expand...
If your drain is connected to municipal sewer system that goes to wastewater treatment plant, dumping wet tumbling wastewater down the drain may be OK but keep in mind that treatment plants do not completely remove all pollutants in the wastewater but rather reduce to levels "allowable by our government" - https://water.usgs.gov/edu/wuww.html
 
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I had never considered tumbling media (or waste water) as a toxic lead source before reading this thread. I'm not sure at this point as i live in northern Illinois, not too far from historic lead mines and have seen some naturally occurring lead smears when excavating on a hillside. So how much could I add to it? I dunno.
My deep well water tests just fine.
 
People respond to lead differently. Some people are less affected by lead absorption regardless what they do and other people seem to attract lead and store in body like iron to magnet.

My experience with lead from shooting indoors increased my blood lead level from 8 to 12 - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ealth-information.307170/page-10#post-9616073

When I stopped shooting at indoor range, my BLL dropped from 12 to 8.1 - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ealth-information.307170/page-12#post-9625420

I no longer shoot at indoor ranges and my lead level has returned to below normal threshold but the experience has left an impression. Am I compelled to wear a full bodysuit and wear a respirator when I shoot outdoors?

No.

But I am more mindful of wind direction when I shoot outdoors and more careful of clothing I use for shooting.

And I certainly won't add anything questionable to our septic system/shallow well if I can help it.

Of course, your experience may vary.
 
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