Household Hazardous Waste

Hazardous waste in our house?!

• We all use many solvents and solutions at home because they help with cleaning, polishing, painting, and other activities.

• These hazardous products often need special handling and storage because they are dangerous to human health or to the environment.

Government Regulations

• Governments require that hazardous household materials be marked with warning symbols that indicate why, and to what degree, a product is dangerous.

Symbols

• Poison: Explosive:

• Flammable: Corrosive:

Degree of Danger

• Caution: The lowest degree of danger. Marked with a yellow triangle with the symbol inside.

• Warning: The next level of danger. Marked with an orange diamond with the symbol inside.

• Danger: The highest degree of danger. Marked with a red octagon.

WHMIS

• WHMIS stands for the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System.

• WHMIS consists of 8 different symbols that each have different meanings.

Why is WHMIS Important?

• WHMIS is a provincial legislative response to provincial employees' and employers' rights to know about the safety and health hazards of the materials they use in the workplace

Three Components of WHMIS

‣ Labels: Applied to containers of hazardous materials. The labels alert the user to the dangers of the product and to the essential precautions for its safe use.

‣ Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS): Prepared by the product supplier and supplied to the user. These sheets provide detailed information about product composition, reactivity, health effects, protective equipment and procedures, and emergency procedures.

‣ Education and Training related to hazards and associated safe work procedures is mandatory for those either working with or working in the proximity of the controlled product.

Meaning of Symbols

• OXIDIZING MATERIAL: Promotes and supports the building of fire.

•  • BIOHAZARDOUS INFECTIOUS

MATERIAL: Toxins that have been shown to cause disease or are believed to cause diseases in either animals or humans.  

• MATERIALS CAUSING IMMEDIATE & SERIOUS TOXIC EFFECTS: Materials if ingested will make you very ill and may cause death.

• COMPRESSED GAS: A compressed gas cylinder is usually quite heavy and when ruptured can become a projectile with the potential to cause significant damage.

• CORROSIVE MATERIAL: Corrosive materials can attack metals or cause permanent damage to human tissues such as the skin and eyes on contact. Can cause burning, scarring, blindness.

• DANGEROUSLY REACTIVE MATERIAL: They may react violently under conditions of shock or an increase in temperature.

•  • FLAMMABLE AND COMBUSTIBLE MATERIAL: Will ignite and continue

to burn if around a flame. •  • MATERIALS CAUSING OTHER TOXIC EFFECTS: Materials they may

cause cancer, irritations of the respiratory and digestive system.• •  

• FLAMMABLE AND COMBUSTIBLE MATERIAL: Will ignite and continue to burn if around a flame.

•  • MATERIALS CAUSING OTHER TOXIC

EFFECTS: Materials they may cause cancer, irritations of the respiratory and digestive system.

WHMIS Symbols