Toxic waste; the term conjures up images of Love Canal and the Woburn Massachusetts leukemia cluster, but every home is full of it - and it is becoming harder and harder to dispose of it responsibly and legally.

Even a short list of the toxics (or perhaps more hazardous waste is more polite) in the average home would include:

  • Old paint and painting products
  • Pesticides
  • Cleaning products
  • Broken or outmoded electronics equipment
  • Construction scraps such as pressure treated wood
  • Dead batteries
  • Prescription and other medicines.

In addition, older homes can contain a lot of asbestos which used to be used in some types of resilient flooring and to insulate furnace boilers and pipes and surfaces painted with lead-based paint.

Asbestos and lead are a no-no for anyone not specially trained it their removal and disposal so call in an expert for the sake of your own and your family's lives and health.


The other products on our list, however, contain their own risks and are not to be thrown willy-nilly into the garbage can or poured down a storm drain.  Not properly disposed of they will eventually and inevitably find their way into the ground water and oceans and we are just beginning to discover the havoc they can wreak.  For example, worrisome levels of some prescription drugs were recently found in the water supply in New York City.  Why?  Because patients have, for years, been told that the toilet was the proper place to dispose of leftover pills and syrups.

In many if not most localities it is illegal to dispose of paint, even old and dried up paint, in the garbage.  Ditto automobile batteries.  Few municipal trash contractors will collect old televisions or computer monitors because of the high levels of heavy metals they contain and I think that motor oil is a no-no everywhere.

But we use the stuff, and the leftovers will fill the basement or the garage, so what are the alternatives.  In all honesty the hazard waste disposal infrastructure is not well developed, probably because no one has found a way as yet to make a lot of money off of it.  But here are some possible alternatives.

Some towns have waste drop off sites which may operate all of the time or only one day a year.  Some even have annual curbside pickups. 

Where trash pick-up is contracted out, some contractors will make special arrangements especially for televisions and CRTs.  Some will also take unused paint although it usually must be dried hard (use kitty litter to hasten drying).  There will probably be a charge to drop off both paint and televisions.

The television disposal problem, incidentally, may become monumental early next year as the changeover to digital transmission goes into effect.  We will identify some sources specific to that problem in an upcoming Green Home posting.

The biggest household waste problem is also the one with the best disposal infrastructure.  It takes only one quart of used motor oil to contaminate 250,000 gallons of ground water and of the one billion gallons of oil Americans use each year, about 350 million gallons end up in the environment (www.earth911.org).  In some states retailers who sell motor oil are mandated to take back and dispose of the used product.  This service is available at many gas stations, auto supply stores, and so forth.  The website referenced above has a search feature that will allow you to locate oil recyclers and companies that will dispose of other products by zip code. 

It appears that the largest national waste disposal contractor is Safety-Kleen (www.safety-kleen.com).  Locations can be found by zip code on their website.  The best local resource for help with disposal is probably either your Department of Public Works or the health department.