Household Hazardous Waste and What You Do If You Find It | Waste ...

Household hazardous waste materials include many things that you probably are storing right now in your garage, basement, bathroom, or kitchen. Some, like paint thinner or car batteries, are pretty obvious, but there are many that you might not ordinarily think of such as polishes, insecticides, mercury thermometers and glues. Household garbage should be contained in in your Town-provided rollout cart. Please seal garbage in plastic bags.

Hazardous Household Waste is defined as items containing ingredients that could be harmful to humans, pets or the environment. These include common items found in many households, such as cleaning products, paint, and garden chemicals.

Hazardous waste is mostly produced by industry where strict legislation is imposed on these processes due to their hazardous emissions such as heavy metals, but the household presence of this material can be dangerous too.

Hazardous waste is a particular class of “solid” waste (which includes solid, liquid, or gaseous material) which, if improperly managed, poses a substantial threat or potential hazard to human health and the environment. Typical wastes generated at many factories include, but are not limited to: spent solvents, waste laboratory chemicals, waste paints and used oil. Some of these will be hazardous and others not, so the skill is in ensuring that all are properly disposed of in the right manner.

Hazardous waste is a term applied to those wastes that because of their chemical reactivity, toxicity, explosiveness, corrosiveness, radioactivity or other characteristics, constitutes a risk to human health or the environment. Such wastes maybe generated as a by-product in the manufacturing processes or maybe generated from the use of various catalysts, which need to be disposed off when spent.

The European Commission has issued a Directive on the controlled management of such waste (91/689/EEC) and hazardous waste is defined on the basis of a list, the European Waste Catalogue, drawn up under that Directive. Hazardous waste is generated by all sectors of society, from large industry, to small businesses, households, schools and farms. It is for the most part managed by the professional hazardous waste industry and is treated appropriately and in accordance with legal requirements.

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