Self-Developing Film In Mae Sot

[naugastyle]

Hello everyone.

I will be living in Mae Sot for 6 months, and will rarely if ever have time to go to Bangkok or Chiang Mai. I'm a dedicated film shooter, and will be bringing bulk film with me but simply cannot buy 200 reusable cassettes or whatever would be needed to store all the film I would shoot in that time. I want to develop the film as I go along and don't mind bringing my equipment (and buying some there). But I'm unclear on how to dispose of the chemicals after use. I will be staying in a guesthouse for a few weeks while I look for other housing.

Here in New York, I dump my chemicals down the drain. I know some people disapprove of that, but I've also heard plenty about how it would never effect a city with a water system the size of New York's, and I believe the majority of self-developers in NYC do the same. Mae Sot though, is pretty small. I can imagine saving up the used chems in some larger bottles. But what next? Is there any sort of national standard place to dump this stuff, or does it depend on region/city? Does anyone have experience with self-developing film in Thailand? Or...um...does anyone live conveniently close enough to a lab that they could ask what they do?

This is only about b/w film. I am definitely not bringing color chems with me --although hoping and praying there is a color lab somewhere, if anyone happens to be familiar with Mae Sot. I was there this summer and didn't think to look around much (at the time wasn't planning on returning so soon), but I think most photo-type places looked like digital printers rather than labs.

Any thoughts? Thanks so much.