Toxic versus Hazardous

Name: Ric
Status: student
Grade: 9-12
Location: N/A

Question: Is toxic the same as hazardous when talking about wastes?
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No.  Toxic is one type of hazard.  A toxic substance is hazardous, but a
hazardous substance may not be toxic.

For instance, compressed air is not toxic, but it is hazardous.

Richard Barrans
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Wyoming
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Pretty much the same, but there is a possible distinction.

I would say "toxic" is a subset of "hazardous".
"Toxic" means it harms you from within, by apparently biochemical
interference.
"Hazardous" means it harms you, route not specified.
Flammable substances are the usual way of being hazardous without being
toxic.
The substance in question is likely to burn with the air that is commonly
present,
and in doing so liberate heat energy,
which can harm you by "physical" means, from the outside.
Large containers of inert gasses like nitrogen can be considered hazardous
because they could harm you by displacing all the oxygen around you.
But simple deprivation of oxygen conforms to our idea of
an external or physical hazard
rather than chemical interference.
Inert gasses are generally called non-toxic,
even though the container may be labeled "hazardous".

I would not take the distinction too seriously, though.

Because of the common sense of my word "interference",
"toxic" has the connotation that the amount of the substance needed to harm
a person
is substantially smaller than the person or their usual intake of air,
water, and food.
Not true of nitrogen asphyxiation, or drowning in water,
or starving because you ate only wood dust for a month.

Jim Swenson
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