Chemical safety (was: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] darkroom at the noisebridge space)

[Audrey Penven]

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 1:00 PM, Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> wrote:
> Audrey Penven writes:
>
>> We'll need to figure out the details of each chemical process that
>> will happen in the space.  I imagine that some of them will be
>> compatible, use the same chemicals, and otherwise coexist nicely.
>> Some of them, not so much.  We can make sure to have a bunch of trays
>> on hand, labeled with the chemical bath they can hold.
>>
>> As far as disposal goes - regular developer and stop baths can be
>> mixed together and poured down the drain safely.  Fixer needs more
>> care.  I believe that Rayko takes used fixer and recycles it for a
>> fee.  I'll find out the details of this.
>
> This reminds me of safety questions that I had about both the darkroom
> and chemistry lab.  I guess that the same safety questions apply to each
> since each will be using some chemicals that may have safety concerns.
> So I think I'll take this opportunity to write up all the safety
> questions that I've thought about so far:
>
> (1) segregation of chemicals and food
>
> We have some food preparation space and a stove that people are
> apparently planning to use on occasion for preparing and eating in the
> space.  What do we need to do to minimize the risk that the food
> preparation space becomes contaminated with materials used for chemistry
> or photographic work?  (One particular issue is about the sink, which
> I'll break out into another point:)
>

Unless there is a process that requires heating the chemicals (which I
currently can't think of), I don't see any reason for photographic
chemicals to be in the kitchen.  I understand the importance of
keeping the chemicals separate from anything that may be consumed.
The darkroom will either have it's own sink, possibly connecting with
the drain of the sink in the bathroom, or print washing and chemical
disposal will happen in the bathroom itself.

> (2) safe storage and disposal of chemicals
>
> What do we need to do to ensure that we store and dispose of chemicals
> safely?  If the kitchen sink is going to be used for food preparation
> and washing dishes, it should probably not be used for chemical disposal
> even for some chemicals that could otherwise legally be disposed of this
> way.  Should we install a separate sink or other facilities for chemical
> disposal or washing glassware and photo trays?

Photo chemicals should be able to be stored in the darkroom space.
Much of the room is sloped due to being under the stairs, making it
basically unusable for anything other than storage.  With some
shelves, chemicals can be stored out of the way.  Basic black and
white chemicals are fine to be stored at room temperature and won't
pose a danger by existing in the space.

However, if we do any other processes, the chemicals may not be as
safe, might require special handling, etc.  That can be dealt with
when the situation comes up.

>
> (3) ventilation
>
> Meredith has been working on planning a fume hood for chemistry work.
> Does the darkroom also need special ventilation arrangements in order
> to protect people working there (or elsewhere in the space)?
>
> What prevents fumes captured by the fume hood from exiting back into
> the space through the kitchen stove vent intake?
>
> Does the fishbowl room or other parts of the space require particular
> ventilation for safety apart from the fume hood?  (Especially if
> particular equipment ... like soldering irons ... may produce various
> kinds of fumes.)
>

The ventilation for the kitchen runs pretty close to the darkroom.
Since the structure is already there, it shouldn't be too much work to
connect the darkroom to it.  Of course, I need to go to the space and
figure out certain details of the construction.  A day in the darkroom
without ventilation is really quite unpleasant.

> (4) training
>
> Further to a note on Talk:Safety by Shannon Clark, should there be some
> kind of training or briefing that people have to do before they can
> start using particular materials or equipment?  (This applies to _all_
> tools and equipment in the space, not just chemicals!)  Shannon wrote:
>
>   a thought, should we have some system akin to how TechShop handles
>   letting people use certain types of tools (i.e. in our case chemistry,
>   perhaps the darkroom, perhaps soldering tools) of only after they have
>   taken a course on Safety and Basic Usage (which in TechShop's case is
>   usually 1hr long)? --Shannonclark 23:42, 1 October 2008 (PDT)
>
> --
> Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Wol dir, werlt, daz du bist
>     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   | also freudenriche!
>     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |           -- Carmina Burana
>

I'm hesitant to *require* that noisebridge members take a class before
using the darkroom, mainly because I dislike setting up barriers to
people doing interesting things.  There's been many times when I've
passed up opportunities for learning and creating because I didn't
want to inconvenience someone with the burden of teaching me.  This is
less true in collaborative environments like hacker spaces, but since
I am very aware of this flaw, I want to be sensitive to the fact that
others may have similar thought processes holding them back from
asking for help.  I will post safety information relating to darkroom
use in the space and on the wiki.  I will also try to be available as
much as possible to teach, give orientations, train people to use the
space safely, or whatever else is necessary.  Periodically, I can
offer more structured workshops that will, of course, cover safety
information.

I trust that in the Noisebridge community, most people will at least
try to understand how to do things safely before doing them.  I don't
want to create an authoritarian structure around darkroom use.  People
will use the space if they feel capable of doing so, whether or not
they've taken a class.  The best we can do is to make safety
information stupidly easy to access and to encourage people to learn
(whether it is in a workshop or through personal research).

With all this in mind, there isn't a whole lot that can go wrong with
normal black and white chemicals unless people are being incredibly
careless and drinking from the trays.  ;-)

- Audrey