Managing Hazardous Household Waste : Your Roles and Responsibilities
by Penelope Pepper
It is no secret that the quantity of household waste produced is increasing at an alarming rate and governments are under pressure to expand or create larger landfills to accommodate the waste that is being produced. What is Household Hazardous Waste?Household waste is leftover from household goods or products. Hazardous household waste are household products which contain chemicals that has the potential to affect plants, the health of humans and animals and are detrimental to the environment when handled improperlyImproper management of household waste has the potential to be very detrimental to the environment, people and animals. What many of us may not realise is that many of those common household contain corrosive, toxic or flammable chemicals; that can be hazardous to the environment if not handled or managed properly.Hazardous household waste should not be disposed of in the same way as regular waste. For example, a gasoline can buried in the ground can affect rivers and find it way into drinking water, the hydrocarbons in the motor oils or pesticides has the potential to bio-accumulate in fresh water fishes and can find it way in the food chain. Burning of hazardous waste leads to the releases of toxic chemicals and fumes in the air. Once released into the environments these chemicals are dispersed over large areas, thereby affecting the health of persons over a wider area. Some of these chemicals remain in the systems of plants and animals for a long time and may be passed in the food chain when the affected plants and animals are consumed or eaten and thus the cycle continues.Bioaccumulation of hazardous compounds in the systems of plants, animals and humans has the potential to affect their reproductive lives, growth, impair the function of various organs such as the liver and kidneys, affect the functioning the central nervous systems and immune systems of human and animals and some have been listed as known carcinogens.How Can You Tell a Product is Hazardous?Read they labels of products. In most countries labels are required to products contain symbols and words to indicate they hazardous and are detrimental to animals, humans and the environment if mishandled.How To Tell If Products Are HazardousAlways read the label of product in your household and make it a habit of reading the labels of product before making the decision to purchase them. What Are Your Roles and ResponsibilitiesPurchase Environmentally Friendly products - Experts agree that, the best way to control waste is to not produce it in the first place. You can start by avoiding the purchase products that contain chemical that are harmful to the hazardous to the environment. Read product labels and purchase those products that are biodegradable or friendly to the environment. Safe Product Storage - Ensure that hazardous products are stored in a safe place, that their containers are not damaged, do not have any leaks to reduce the risk of contaminating water sources, land, humans, plants and the environment. Ensure that corrosive products like acids are stored in separate areas from other hazardous products.Check products frequently to ensure that there are no leaks and broken lids or bulging sides.Ensure that theses products are stored in a place where children and animal have no access to them.Disposal of Products – Disposal of products should always be the last resort. Why? Because there are no safe ways of disposing hazardous waste. You can avoid the dilemma of hazardous waste disposal by either selecting biodegradable products, recycling the product, giving the excess products to friends, neighbours or family or purchasing smaller volumes of the product.If however disposal is inevitable then you should dispose of the waste in the manner prescribed on the label.Although there exist laws to regulate the handling and use of large quantities of hazardous waste the existence of laws to regulate the small quantities such as that the household is no existence. For this reason the responsibility for the management of hazardous waste falls squarely on the shoulders of the hazardous waste generators.Protection of the environ can only happen when we play our role in finding creative way to re-use, recycle or reduce waste. This is essential if we are to safeguard the environment and health of future generations. Waste Management is Your Business, My Business, Our Business.
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