How To Dispose of Hazardous Waste Responsibly
Hazardous waste is commonly produced on both commercial and household levels. However, before we go well into the details of the effects of hazardous waste and the benefits of recycling hazardous waste, what is hazardous waste?
Hazardous waste is any waste, generally, from any source, that can constitute a health problem for humans or harm the environment. This kind of waste can be generated from industrial sources during manufacturing, and this is perhaps the most popular and most consequential source of hazardous waste. You can imagine the waste from petroleum industries, plastic producing industries, mines, electronic industries, and even pharmaceutical industries. In these industries, you’ll find manufacturing waste, batteries, toxic gases, liquid, solid, and sludge.
However, this kind of waste may be generated from your homes and residences or places of commercial business. In these places, the following may all constitute a hazardous waste.
- Home and vehicle batteries
- Garden chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides
- Swimming pool chemicals
- Sharps such as needles, blades, broken glass, syringes
- Mercury
- Medications
- Asbestos
- Beauty waste and cleansers
- Electronics/ Ewaste (laptops, phones, computers, televisions, etc.)
- Compact fluorescent lamps and fluorescent light bulbs
- Paint products (oil-based, wood preservative, oil-based, caulk, latex, spray paint), and
- Automotive products such as antifreeze, polish, waxes, etc.
There are so many materials you use that contain substances, most often chemicals, that make the entire product hazardous waste at the end of use.
It’s important to note that while hazardous substances can take any form; gas, liquid, or solid, only solid wastes are typically characterized as household hazardous wastes.
Want to get proactive and promote sustainability practices in your home or business? Dimension can help you with hazardous trash pickup, appliance disposal, television pickup, and garbage disposal.
Why Recycle Hazardous Waste
400 million tons of hazardous waste are generated each year. In 2019, the US generated more than 34 million tons of hazardous waste, 28.7 million tons of which were wastewater. However, in 2017, only 1.5 million tons of hazardous waste generated in the US were recycled.
The consequence of this continuous generation of hazardous waste without proper recycling is that we fill up or environment, oceans, soil, and landfills with these harmful substances. Apart from using up our natural resources, this could lead to potential environmental hazards.
By proper management and recycling of hazardous waste, we:
Conserve natural resources by cutting raw material consumption
Protect our environment
Reduce pollution
Reduce energy use
Let Dimension Handle Your Hazardous Waste Disposal.
Preparing Your Hazardous Waste for Recycling
Step 1: Don’t
Refrain from dumping your hazardous waste in the general trash, on the floor, streetside or curbside, or down the drain. For example, if you throw your paint down the drain, you can potentially contaminate drinking water with the harmful chemicals in the paint, making it less potable.
Step 2: Separate
There are several types of hazardous waste. Separate the corrosives, e.g., batteries, the flammables, and the poisonous hazardous waste. Don’t put your batteries in the same trash as your paint and then your fluorescent lights and mercury.
Step 3: Containers and Labels
Use proper containers and label them accordingly. Do not store hazardous waste for recycling in plastic bags. Use proper containers for liquids, tightly sealed containers for solids, puncture-proof, tight and strong containers for sharps, and gas cylinders should still have their gas protection caps.
Step 4: Empty reagent containers
This is not only necessary for recycling or disposal but also reuse. Before recycling, ensure to rinse empty reagent containers thoroughly and don’t rinse into the drain. Make sure you have a separate waste container for your rinsate. It’s also important to rinse with the proper solvent, which could be water for inorganic reagent containers and acetone, followed by water for organic reagent containers.
Note that while hiring a trash removal expert, some home pickup services may not offer home collection for certain hazardous waste such as liquid mercury, radioactive items, biological waste, ammunition and explosives, and unlabeled materials.
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Disposing of your Hazardous Waste
Find a Drop Off location
Your locality may have a hazardous waste drop-off location from where it is then transported to the appropriate recycling facility. Check if there is a community collection point for hazardous waste near you. If there is, remember to follow our steps for preparing your hazardous waste for recycling. Also, make sure to find out what types of hazardous wastes are accepted at the collection point.
Hiring a Trash Removal Expert and Disposal Professional
Dispose of your hazardous waste responsibly.
The high chances are that you have used universal waste in your lifetime, whether at work or at home. Universal waste includes everyday items such as light bulbs and batteries, which have been classified as hazardous so that businesses and individuals dispose of them in the right way. It’s so important to recycle these potentially dangerous materials properly due to the harmful effect on the environment they can have.
If there’s no pickup point near you or you’re not ready to deal with the stress of driving to the next pick up point, but you’d like to dispose of your hazardous waste responsibly, the easiest way to go about this is to hire a professional waste disposal service and let them handle it. Some waste disposal services may offer this service for a price. Google “Hazardous waste Disposal Services Near Me” and find some suggestions.
Dimension can help you out with your household hazardous waste recycling and disposal. We also provide commercial and industrial hazardous waste solutions!
We are a team of professionals that handle garbage disposal, bulk trash pickup, and junk removal, and we preach responsibility and compliance in waste disposal. We know how best to handle your hazardous waste and make sure it is disposed of and recycled sustainably.
Why choose Dimension for your hazardous waste removal and management?
- Gain expert guidance about tricky items like batteries, pesticides, apparatus containing mercury, lamps, and aerosols.
- Protect your business from major risks when disposing of universal waste: a quarter of a teaspoon of mercury will contaminate a 20-acre lake.
- Receive up-to-date guidance on hidden, everyday products which are classed as universal waste, such as old TVs and computers.
Don’t risk getting caught out by the strict guidelines on universal waste material disposal. Dimension will be on hand every step, from designing sustainable and personalized solutions to ensuring that your junk removal is completed stress-free and promptly.
What’s more? We don’t only handle hazardous waste disposal; we can help with other items you don’t need, including metal scrap disposal, mattress disposal, couch disposal, furniture removal, cardboard recycling, appliance disposal, etc. And unlike most waste disposal/ junk removal companies, we are very affordable.
Give us a call today!