While cleaning you may have recently come across some half-used bottles of insecticide, oil-based paint, or household cleaners and solvents you no longer need. Your first instinct might be to throw them in the garbage—or worse, pour them down the drain.
Eventually, these hazardous household chemicals make their way into the ground water, contaminating drinking water, polluting septic systems and wastewater treatment systems, and injuring plant and animal life. It’s important that they are disposed of properly and safely.
How to Dispose of Household Hazardous Waste
Bucks County’s Household Hazardous Waste Collection Program organizes several collections throughout the county each year for household hazardous waste and unwanted computer equipment. Visit the Bucks County Recycling Web site for dates, locations, and general information on recycling.
What Qualifies as Household Hazardous Waste?
- Batteries
- Paints, varnishes, and solvents
- Household cleaners
- Indoor and outdoor pesticides
- Glues and cements
- Antifreeze and other automotive products
- And more
Fast Facts About Hazardous Household Hazardous Waste
A study found that 3% of all garbage collectors in California are injured each year after coming into contact with hazardous waste casually tossed into residential trash cans.
Each person in the U.S. produces an average of 4 pounds of hazardous household waste per year—a whopping 530,000 tons each year.
In 1997 a New York trash hauler died when he was unknowingly exposed to a toxic chemical improperly discarded by a laboratory.
