I am finally getting a shop in the works and im wondering about what i'll be sending down the sink. We were taught in school to tan by starting off with a formic acid soak....safe to send into septic?...safe to neutralize with baking soda and drain outside?...or just plain dont mention i even have it?
I'd like to know,
Thanks
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to save your self a headache and a septis system later do not pour the pickle down the drain and into the septic. the pickle acid halts bacteril growth and that is what keeps yoour septic going strong if you dump it down in will only be a matter of time and you will be having problems. right now i have some tanks out side that i store my used chems in until the township comes and picks it up. soon there will be sewer out here i guess and i can dump it down the drain i use saftee acid and i love the stuff it is safe easy to use and plumps very nice and is unbelieveably stable.dont know nothing too much about formic acid.call your city or township and they can tell you what to do with it they come and pick mine up like i said for 75 dollars every 1500 gallons.when i neutralize with baking soda i put that in the tanks too but i dont think that there would be any ill effects from dumping just that out.if your not doing alot of tanning just call the close sewer treatment plant and see if you can put it in some small barrles and take it there to dump it . they should let you for a small fee but like i said i dont know if they will do it with formic there but i know that they will do it with saftee acid. hope this helps
bruce
this saftee acid wuld used in the same method? After the salting, rinsing and relaxing and before the fleshing then? I have seen saftee acid in the catalogs and all and it sounds like it would be easier on my nose and hands which tend to burn at times it seems with the formic. Guess I'll have to experiment and find out what i like and what works at this stage of the game.
Good question..I was wondering the same thing a few months ago. What I did was just add 3 or 4 cups of baking soda to my pickle bath, and let it bubble up and neutralize. After the PH was back up a good ways, I dumped it down the septic. I was hoping that with the combination of the baking soda and the considerable amount of water in the septic tank, that it wouldn't be a problem. Don't have to worry about it now since I've started sending everything to a tannery, but think I'll give Bruce Rittel a call in the future, and ask him about this issue.