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Am I polluting our environment?
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dastructhm:
I use lead(40%) solder to solder my boards. My boards' pads contain lead.  My solder paste may contain lead too. I wash them all with ethanol. I threw away bad boards in the dumpster.

I never actually thought about it, when it comes it environment protection, until a few days ago: Am I polluting the environment? To be specific, our water system in the drain and our soil? It sounds scary...
ataradov:
You are. Almost everything you do as a living being pollutes the environment. What you do with the solder is minuscule compared to other stuff. You probably cause more tangible damage by  eating a burger.

With ethanol - it is not the best idea to drain it into the sewer. It is technically prohibited in any concentration. The best way of home disposal is letting it evaporate in a well ventilated environment. There is no reason to use so much of it for the PCB stuff that it becomes an issue. Most of the stuff evaporates in the process of washing anyway.
AndyBeez:
Throw your bad boards into the E-waste bin at your local city or council tip. In theory they will pass the E-waste to a facility that extracts the dangerous chemicals. In reality, the E-waste facility may be a scam business that's shipping non ferrous parts to a burning rubbish heap in central Africa - but at least you made the effort to protect your local environment.

RoHS in Euroland : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Substances_Directive
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