Hi all .
Just had a brain fart and was wondering if it's a good idea or not .
I now have a pile of spare dropper bottles after upgrading the Precipitation lot .
I was just about to get a pile of bottles of Food Colouring and pipettes out for a prac and it occurred to me that I could save a lot of time washing out pipettes if I just used the droppers .
Does anyone else do it and is it a bad idea to have squirty bottles of food colour in the labs
Years ago, we went through a stage of using soooooo much food colouring that I ordered it in 500ml bottles and transferred it into droppers. I haven't been able to find it in bulk to do at my new school. It saved so much money though and they are probably still using it!
Our "food colouring" is actually Educational Colours Fun Dye. Our school has a Winc account so we order our bottles through them but you can also get the 500mL bottles from Officeworks, Modern Teaching Aids etc.
The 500mL bottles are well worth the money. Some of our lesser used colours like purple and orange have lasted us ages (the orange was bought in March 2011 according to the date on it).
The only ones we really go through a lot of are blue and red but even then they last us around 12-24 months
Thanks. Never thought about a dye alternative. Been getting the food dye from the supermarkets as that is what they had when I got here. Now it wont be so annoying when the students (and teachers) use half a bottle of dye to dye something that just takes a few drops.
At my old school we had powdered food dye (or "fun dye"), and I made sure to buy some at my new job too (got it from MTA but I'm sure other suppliers are available). It's powerful so you go through it slowly, 500g will last decades probably! You can manage the strength of your liquid dyes if you make it up from powder, and use it for making playdough or in separation pracs. Very handy.
