you mentioned the problem with liquid or solid waste like solutions or salts, but the waste we make is much more, you have to consider liquid waste
(washings, mother liquors etc), solid waste (filtrates, residues, but also gloves, contaminated tissues etc), gaseous waste (the "do it outside" can
be annoying to the neightborhood, and to ambientalists).
a regular lab has many more restrictions than us, if we are going to be regulated we would need to follow strict rules, but as you can see on this
forum, we tend to be cheap and janky, not everyone can afford a real fumehood with appropriate certificates for example. our hobby can be dangerous to
us and to the enviroment, so probably we could practice amateur chemistry only if we had the equivalent of a research lab, something 99% of us can't
afford because of money, space or other reasons |