I hear what you are saying. Years ago I used presensitized boards
and that red plastic mask that you cut and pealed away. The Ferric
Chloride I used back then said to flush it down the drain so I did. I
live across the street from the Passaic river. When I was a kid there
were no fish in the river. It had human waste and chemicals in it.
Once the most beautiful river east of the Mississippi. Now it is the
most polluted and it will never be clean. So many "harmless chemicals"
as they used to tell us here made it into the river. There were two
Agent Orange factories on the river. That chemical breaks down into
something worse and it sits in the silt forever. I don't have children
but I still care about the envirement. There is a field a few miles
from here where they chromed bumpers. All the streams and rivers in
the area are DEAD! Comparing Vinegar with Ferric Chloride is one of
those type of tricks they used to pull on us here. Even if you let the
Ferric Chloride dryout it is still a pollutant. With mechanical
etching you get a thimble of fiberglass dust. To keep the dust down
spread three drops of motor oil on the boards before milling.
--- In
Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com, "lcdpublishing"
<lcdpublishing@y...> wrote:
>
>
> > I live in New Jersey and I run www.kleinbauer.com as a real
> > business Tax Number and all. Technically speaking mechanical
> etching
> > keeps me from having to file with the EPA. Every so often the state
> > sends me a letter asking what chemicals I use. Like I said I got a
> > super fund site near me. You guys can dump your chemicals down the
> > drain, I can't. I have already signed on the dotted line saying I
> > don't have chemicals here.
>
> Yeah, they are much tougher out east with regard to "toxic" waste
> removal and such. However, why not just let the chemicals evaporate
> (it's mostly water) which only leaves the solids which are much
> easier to dispose of.
>
> Although, it seems to me that the instructions for Ferric Chloride
> disposal are to dump it down the drain. If the instructions state
> that, I would have to assume it is safe to do so. Is it?
>