Pollution......we’re all going to die.

Make that drainfield jumbo sized. Although it can be difficult on mountain prooerty, if you are on a slope. I'm trying to workout where to relocate ours.

Meanwhile I need some space aged bacteria to help with my existing one.

Well after reading a little, apparently these treatments are not effective and can be harmful. I dropped Rid-X for 12 years.
 
No, there is nothing ironic about it, they recycle the needles as well. Show me the irony. They ban straws but a totally unrelated policy of a needle exchange makes the banning of the straws ironic?
So you're saying no syringes make it to the ocean? No syringes make it down a street drain?
 
Well after reading a little, apparently these treatments are not effective and can be harmful. I dropped Rid-X for 12 years.
Maybe so, but it's hard to say. I have a new tank, but the existing drainfield lines are either just saturated from this crazy unrelenting rain, or full of bio material, which some liken to a plastic coating, preventing water from absorbing.

The local guys say that if you can pour dissolved lye into the distribution box (25lbs or so) , it will eat the biomat and restore the drainfield to some degree, while not affecting your Septic tank.

Im not saying it's a good idea, or a bad one.. just that it's probably next on my list, after exhausting the "special bacteria products".

I guess this is still mostly on topic.

Anyone know where to buy a big bag of lye?
 
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Get with @RavinDave. He is a chemist iirc.

Every time I ask someone they think I mean lime, I know I don't want to make cement in my field lines.. Lye(sodium hydroxide) is pretty dangerous, apparently, that stuff from Fight Club they were using to make soap. Seems hard to come by locally, in any quantity.
 
Calling me a chemist? How caustic of you!

Actually I are a chemical engineer...

You sound like a pirate...ayrrrr.

I honestly do not know the difference. I guess a chemist would formulate, what does an engineer do?

Maybe better move this to the OT.
 
Not sure it won’t work on plastics too. Do you know it won’t work on plastics or were you basing this off of my “anything organic” statement? I really meant, anything with a carbon-based chemistry.
What I read about it was basically anything non-recyclable except for paper. Organic vs inorganic.
 
What I read about it was basically anything non-recyclable except for paper. Organic vs inorganic.
From that standpoint plastics are in the organics class. Even though they are man made polymers, they are definitely not inorganic. Inorganic is essentially mineral-based (e.g. metals, ores, alumina, silica etc.), not carbon-based. One common characteristic of all polymers is, a carbon chain is the main structure. Pretty sure most polymers are cleavable in a high energy plasma generating environment; might work well for PET (bottles) although I'd be leery of PVC or teflon because of the attached chlorine and fluorine atoms which may make the plasma/gas highly corrosive.
 
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Every time I ask someone they think I mean lime, I know I don't want to make cement in my field lines.. Lye(sodium hydroxide) is pretty dangerous, apparently, that stuff from Fight Club they were using to make soap. Seems hard to come by locally, in any quantity.
Google is your friend......you could always make it from wood ash.
 
From that standpoint plastics are in the organics class. Even though they are man made polymers, they are definitely not inorganic. Inorganic is essentially mineral-based (e.g. metals, ores, alumina, silica etc.), not carbon-based. One common characteristic of all polymers is, a carbon chain is the main structure. Pretty sure most polymers are cleavable in a high energy plasma generating environment; might work well for PET (bottles) although I'd be leery of PVC or teflon because of the attached chlorine and fluorine atoms which may make the plasma/gas highly corrosive.
Well that B, C, D, F, and W I made in 3 quarters of organic obviously didnt stick. Tip of the hat sir!
 
Google is your friend......you could always make it from wood ash.

I did the googling, but am cheap enough not to want to pay shipping for the poundage. But I ain't so cheap to make it from ash.. hmm, or am I?

I'm imagining a tedious process.. but am curious enough to look into it.
 
No wonder you follow Q around like a lost puppy, you can't comprehend plain english.
I doubt 80% makes it back to a needle exchange by hand. It either gets picked up by a city worker or it floats to the ocean in the sewer system or could even be left on the beach.
 
I did the googling, but am cheap enough not to want to pay shipping for the poundage. But I ain't so cheap to make it from ash.. hmm, or am I?

I'm imagining a tedious process.. but am curious enough to look into it.
Lye and fat used to be used to make......
 
Make that drainfield jumbo sized. Although it can be difficult on mountain prooerty, if you are on a slope. I'm trying to workout where to relocate ours.

Meanwhile I need some space aged bacteria to help with my existing one.

I think some of our success has been that we only had two sons, and it's just been my wife and me here for years. I agree; overbuild the septic system - and keep trees etc away from the field lines.
 
Maybe so, but it's hard to say. I have a new tank, but the existing drainfield lines are either just saturated from this crazy unrelenting rain, or full of bio material, which some liken to a plastic coating, preventing water from absorbing.

The local guys say that if you can pour dissolved lye into the distribution box (25lbs or so) , it will eat the biomat and restore the drainfield to some degree, while not affecting your Septic tank.

Im not saying it's a good idea, or a bad one.. just that it's probably next on my list, after exhausting the "special bacteria products".

I guess this is still mostly on topic.

Anyone know where to buy a big bag of lye?

You need to talk to @Septic.
 
You sound like a pirate...ayrrrr.

I honestly do not know the difference. I guess a chemist would formulate, what does an engineer do?

Maybe better move this to the OT.

Old joke about engineer literacy. "When I got here I couldn't spel enginear and now I are one." Or something similar. By the way the least literate engineer I ever knew worked for me ... he was a Ga Tech grad. Good engineer, but I can't tell you how much time I spent trying to help make his reports readable.
 

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