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 O XIDIZING M ATERIAL : Promotes and supports the building of fire. B IOHAZARDOUS I NFECTIOUS M ATERIAL : Toxins that have been shown to cause disease or are believed to cause diseases in either animals or humans.

M ATERIALS C AUSING I MMEDIATE & S ERIOUS T OXIC E FFECTS : Materials if ingested will make you very ill and may cause death. C OMPRESSED G AS : A compressed gas cylinder is usually quite heavy and when ruptured can become a projectile with the potential to cause significant damage.

C ORROSIVE M ATERIAL : 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. D ANGEROUSLY R EACTIVE M ATERIAL : They may react violently under conditions of shock or an increase in temperature. F LAMMABLE AND C OMBUSTIBLE M ATERIAL : Will ignite and continue to burn if around a flame. M ATERIALS C AUSING O THER T OXIC E FFECTS : Materials they may cause cancer, irritations of the respiratory and digestive system.

F LAMMABLE AND C OMBUSTIBLE M ATERIAL : Will ignite and continue to burn if around a flame. M ATERIALS C AUSING O THER T OXIC E FFECTS : Materials they may cause cancer, irritations of the respiratory and digestive system.

WHMIS Symbols