opening about 0 017 pounds of solvent is lost per square foot of photopolymer plate processed the waste is held in a waste holding tank to be prepared for disposal for safety purposes the centrifuge may have a pressure relief valve attached to an exhaust fan for venting if excessive pressure is present in the system the purified solvent can be fed directly to the plate processor 22 as depicted in fig1 or to a clean holding tank 28 to be prepared for subsequent use as shown in fig2 in an embodiment of the invention the polymer contaminated solvent is transferred from the plate processors to a dirty holding tank 30 before being fed into the centrifuge 20 likewise the purified solvent exiting the centrifuge 20 is transferred to a clean tank before the solvent is distributed to individual plate processor the process of fig2 is more flexible than that of fig1 because the number of operating plate processor can be varied according to the needs and requirements of the overall developing process in a preferred embodiment as depicted in fig3 and 4 of the present invention the purified solvent is directed through a filter 50 downstream of the centrifuge and prior to being fed into the plate processor 22 or the.