Household Hazards Line Team (l-r) Donna Keller, Paul Shallow, Will Perry, Steve Burke, Leo Melendez, Keiko Ii (sitting)

What's the best way to handle and dispose of household hazardous products in your house, like paint, cleaners, pesticides, fertilizers and automotive products? Let me share some simple recommendations.

Read labels before purchasing a product, since you can tell if a product is hazardous by reading the label. Each label has a signal word if it contains chemicals. These signal words are "Caution", "Warning", "Danger" or "Poison." Avoid products with the signal words "Danger" or "Poison." If you must use a hazardous product, apply it in accordance with the manufacturer's directions and take the precautions listed on the label.

Do not mix (or store) incompatible products together. For instance, mixing ammonia and bleach creates chlorine gas, which can be fatal. Store hazardous products in their original containers.

Use less or non toxic products such as vinegar, baking soda and mechanical devices such as flytraps, mousetraps, drain plungers and weed pullers to protect yourself, your family and your pet's health, as well as protect the environment from being contaminated. For instance, you can bring lawn pesticides inside on your shoes. Your children and pets are exposed to these chemicals by playing on or eating the grass. Rain or lawn watering can wash pesticides into storm drains. This may contaminate our surface and ground water resources that are used by fish and for recreational and drinking purposes. There have been local and national reports of such instances.

Where possible buy only the amount you need and once finished with the product either try to use it up, give it away or dispose of it properly for free at one of the household hazardous waste facilities. For instance, latex paint which is less toxic than oil based paint, can be dried out and the empty can placed in the garbage with the lid off.

For proper disposal, Seattle has two household hazardous waste collection sites that are open three days a week. The Wastemobile operates in King County on weekends for one to three days at rotating locations, and the Factoria Locker is open four days a week. The Factoria Locker has a 30 gallon liquid limit per customer per day, and the three other sites have a 50 gallon liquid limit. At the Factoria Locker customers customers will not get their containers back. All sites have a 30 gallon gasoline limit. No container larger than 5 gallons is accepted without approval.

The Household Hazards Line can help you with these and other disposal questions, including directions to the sites as well as days and hours of operation. Call 206-296-4692, Monday through Friday, except holidays between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

Remember, you can make a difference in your own and your family's health and quality of life by choosing products wisely and disposing of them properly

For more information, please visit our web site at: www.govlink.org/hazwaste/house

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