Household Hazardous Waste

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Household Hazardous Waste
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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.

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Government Regulations

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

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Symbols

• Poison Explosive
• Flammable Corrosive

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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.

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WHMIS

• WHMIS stands for the Workplace Hazardous
  Materials Information System.
• WHMIS consists of 8 different symbols that each
  have different meanings.

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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

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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.

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WHMIS Symbols