Household hazardous waste (HHW), sometimes called retail hazardous waste, is post-consumer waste which qualifies as hazardous waste when discarded. It includes household chemicals and other substances for which the owner no longer has a use, such as consumer products sold for home care, personal care, automotive care, pest control and other purposes. These products exhibit many of the same dangerous characteristics as fully regulated hazardous waste due to their potential for reactivity, ignitability, corrosivity, toxicity, or persistence. Examples include drain cleaners, oil paint, motor oil, antifreeze, fuel, poisons, pesticides, herbicides and rodenticides, fluorescent lamps, lamp ballasts, smoke detectors, medical waste, some types of cleaning chemicals, and consumer electronics (such as televisions, computers, and cell phones).
Certain items such as batteries and fluorescent lamps can be returned to retail stores for disposal. The Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation (RBRC) maintains a list of battery recycling locations and your local environmental organization should have list of fluorescent lamp recycling locations.
Read more about Household Hazardous Waste: United States, European Union
Famous quotes containing the words household, hazardous and/or waste:
“Unaware of the absurdity of it, we introduce our own petty household rules into the economy of the universe for which the life of generations, peoples, of entire planets, has no importance in relation to the general development.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“Falling in love with a United States Senator is a splendid ordeal. One is nestled snugly into the bosom of power but also placed squarely in the hazardous path of exposure.”
—Barbara Howar (b. 1934)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)