Household Hazardous Waste

Overview	HHW Listserv
Virtual House	State and Local Programs
Topic Hub	Additional Resources

Overview

Common household items such as paints, cleaners, oils, batteries, and pesticides contain hazardous components. One way to help determine if your household waste has hazardous components is to read the labels on products. Labels that read danger, warning, caution, toxic, corrosive, flammable, or poison identify products that might contain hazardous materials. Leftover portions of these products are called household hazardous waste (HHW). These products, if mishandled, can be dangerous to your health and the environment.

Although we cannot completely stop using hazardous products, we can make sure that leftovers are managed properly. The best way to handle HHW is to reduce the amount initially generated by giving leftover products to someone else to use. To deal with household hazardous waste, many communities have set up collection programs to prevent HHW from being disposed of in MSW landfills and combustors. These programs ensure the safe disposal of HHW in facilities designed to treat or dispose of hazardous waste. More than 3,000 HHW collection programs exist in the United States.

Virtual House

picture showing cut away of two story house showing bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, family room, basement and garage

The virtual house can help you identify potentially hazardous products in a home on a room-by-room basis. This graphic-based house tour provides a visual review of hazardous products, their location, and use in the home and detailed information about the hazards associated with household products.

Household Hazardous Waste Topic Hub

EPA Region 7 provided a grant to the University of Nebraska, Omaha to establish a Household Hazardous Waste Topic Hub , This web site is a quick guide to the essential information on Household Hazardous Waste. A compilation of pertinent on-line resources, it includes background information, management options, best practices and consumer education information.

This website also includes the HHW Listserv A listserv is list of e-mail addresses of individuals who have chosen to correspond online about a specific topic. Over 300 subscribers who are professionals from across the United States use this forum to exchange information on HHW education, policy and program management.

State and Local Programs

Kansas

Information for citizens

Technical Information for HHW Collection Programs

Contact List for Household Hazardous Waste Facilities in Kansas

Iowa

Household Hazardous Materials (HHMs) Regional Collection Centers

, includes Contact information for all RCC facilities and Regional Collection Center Grant Application and Guidelines.

Missouri

State Wide: contact your Solid Waste Management District

for HHW program information.

Kansas City Area A list of programs is maintained by the Mid America Planning Council.

Additional Resources

More on Household Hazardous Waste, including EPA publications and a list of suggested alternatives to common hazardous household items, can be found on the EPA national website.

Additional information on Batteries can be found on the EPA Product Stewardship site.