You are looking at the dried up residue of about two gallons of giclée coating waste water. The toxic crap is what's left of a witches brew containing MOAB®, Clear Sheild® and Golden® brand coatings. It covers the bottom of a 16 X 20-inch plastic tray (below) that we use to evaporate the dangerous effluents. That way the stuff in the tray is trapped and never gets into the eco system. Instead, the solids are easily packaged and disposed of properly. On Vashon that means bringing them to a hazardous materials 'recycle' event, held annually for the benefit of the community.
At Vashon Island Imaging we're very Eco oriented because a.) we are on an island with limited water resources and b.) have a septic system. That combination means we eventually drink and bath in what we put down the drain. So we are very careful about disposing any kind of chemicals. Our philosophy is that if it hasn't gone through your body it shouldn't go down the tube.
The coatings we use to protect giclée prints contain very dangerous chemicals that are lethal to plants and animals. They should never get near our aquifers or oceans. What to do?
1.) Restrict the amount of water used to clean your coating paraphernalia
2.) Evaporate the waste water in a large shallow pan
We manage to generate only a cup and a half (375 ml) of waste water when cleaning the sprayer, less than that for brushes ...and none when using the roller for applying coatings, believe it or not.
Sprayer Cleaning
When it comes to rinsing out the sprayer, take a cue from bartenders who clean glassware with a simple 2-part dip and dunk... once in detergent and once in rinse water. You can't help think that it isn't sanitary, but the simple procedure meets Health Department standards. The point is you don't need gallons of water to clean-up.
Instead of filling the sprayer with water, add only 1/4 cup and swish it around thoroughly before spilling it into an evaporation tray. Do that thrice and you're still under one cup if waste water. The other 1/2 cup is shot through the sprayer nozzle in three bursts. (If two rinses is OK for restaurants, three is even better.)
Several of my earlier blogs about coatings talk more about additional sprayer cleaning necessitated by particular brands and types of coatings.
Brush Cleaning
When cleaning brushes blot out as much coating (or paint) as you can using paper towels or old newspapers before rinsing. You don't need gallons of water for brushes either... one cup is all you need. Divvy up the cup of water into six portions. Dip the blotted brush into the first portion and work the water into the brush. Then blot it dry. Repeat for portions 2 through 6, each time blotting the brush dry before the next immersion.
Rollers
The best roller for coating giclées is a 6-inch one made of foam or with a very short nap that doesn't shed. If you use one of those you'll never need to clean it. The roller fits perfectly into a Snapple® bottle.
Around the neck excess coating dries into a 'rind' that makes an airtight seal... a week later your roller will still be ready for action, pre-loaded with coating. (The rind needs to be removed before using the roller again.)
Since we don't clean rollers anymore by virtue of the Snapple® bottle, we use separate rollers for different kinds of coatings. That said, we have largely given up rolling in favor of spraying. That too is the subject of an earlier blog, and there's even more in my book about pixel perfect printing, Giclée Prepress - The Art of Giclée (www.gicleeprepress.com).
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