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Heavy metal copper waste?

I got some CuSo4 from school and mixed it in with some water, then hooked up a battery charger ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] and watched it plate, it was quite facinating. It plated copper onto the metal, that could be easily sanded off, I noticed there was clumps of jelly like copper metal in the water, does this constitute heavy metal waste? If anyone could enlighten me on this subject I would be more than happy. Thank you Barrett

Barrett Russell
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
1999

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'Heavy Metal Waste' means any wastewater that has a heavy metal in it in ANY form, Barrett, and a 'heavy' metal is nearly anything that you would normally think of as a metal (sodium and calcium are in a sense metals, but they are light metals rather than heavy metals).

So the CuSO4 itself is a heavy metal waste because of the copper that is dissolved in it (which gives it the blue color), not because something has caused a portion of the solution to partially precipitate and form jelly-like copper-colored globs. Get back to us if it's still confusing.

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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