Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Hazardous waste

I'm cleaning out the basement of my parents' house, which is soon to be sold. Above is a picture of one of the things I found. It's a roll of asbestos paper, about 50 feet long.

Our town's recycling center accepts hazardous waste, but they won't take asbestos because they don't want people doing do-it-yourself asbestos cleanup. They directed me to a commercial outfit that charges something like $50 per trunk load.

So I put it on eBay. I got $33 for it, and somebody came in late and offered $100!

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Fun with chemistry



I just found this box in my parents' basement.

My 7th grade science teacher let me order some chemicals from a scientific supply house. He said everything was OK as long as I didn't order sodium nitrate, since that could be used to make gunpowder. Here's what I got:
nitric acid
sulfuric acid
potassium chlorate
magnesium ribbon
sodium peroxide

I had a lot of fun with that stuff!