Stop throwing away your money and recycle your scrap and unwanted film!

Many of you may not be aware of the high value your scrap film contains. Many of you may, for simplicities sake, be offering your scrap or unwanted film for free, just so you can be environmentally friendly. Even worse some of you are literally throwing money away by not recycling your unwanted and scrap film in the proper way.

All Litho films and X-Ray films, regardless of the industry it is used in has silver. That's right, that shiny mirror like, metallic stuff which value has been increasing higher and higher each year for the past 6 years! And there seems to be no stopping the upward trend for silvers value to increase.

The silver emulsion is not easy to remove from the film base, but it can be done. With today's silver value recycling the film is more cost effective allowing for higher monetary returns from scrap and unwanted film.

First film is collected from the generator like a medical facility or offset lithographer printer. A receipt is issued to the generator indicating the type and quantity of film collected. The film is then delivered to the processing facility.

At the refining facility, the film is chopped in an industrial shredder to approximately of an inch in size. The chopped film is then "cooked" in a chemical bath to soften and separate the silver emulsion from the films plastic base. The softened silver emulsion then gradually sinks to the bottom of the chemical bath and the plastic base floats to the top of the chemical bath.

The separated silver emulsion is then collected and goes through another refining process where all other impurities are burned off leaving pure silver.

Lastly, the plastic base is not thrown away as it also has a value. The plastic chips are bagged then sold to plastic manufactures which will create new products with the recycled plastic.

There is one more factor to consider for recycling unwanted and scrap film. Though most films with a silver emulsion are not considered hazardous waste based on U. S. Federal regulations and thus are allowed to be disposed of in a landfill, there may be local state, county and even city laws and or programs that require the proper disposal of used or unwanted scrap film.

In summery it just makes economic and environmental sense to recycle your scrap or unwanted film and ERSI can help you get top dollar for your material