Waste reduction fast facts: Household hazardous waste
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This resource is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but can be cited and dated from primary and secondary sources. To find out more about the methodology or accuracy, contact the referenced source.
Metro does not validate nor endorse any of these facts.
- According to national estimates, each home contains from three to eight gallons of hazardous materials in kitchens, bathrooms, garages, and basements. Examples include pesticides, herbicides, poisons, corrosives, solvents, fuels, paints, motor oil, antifreeze, and mercury and mercury-containing wastes.
http://www.deq.state.or.us/lq/sw/hhw/index.htm - The three most dangerous cleaning products in the average home are drain cleaners, oven cleaners and acid-based toilet cleaners, and should be labeled "DANGER. Corrosive." Washington Toxics Coalition,"Safer Cleaning Products," Philip Dickey, http://www.watoxics.org/publications
- The outcome of improper use and handling of household hazardous wastes is the potential contamination of surface water, groundwater, and air resulting in exposure to humans. http://www.deq.state.or.us/lq/sw/hhw/index.htm
- 520 of Oregon's largest hazardous waste generators, also called "regulated generators," generated 114 million pounds of hazardous waste in 2005. http://www.deq.state.or.us/lq/pubs/factsheets/hw/SB103HWFee.pdf
- Pesticides contain both "active" ingredients that kill pests and so-called "inert" ingredients, which may be identified as "other" ingredients. The inert ingredients often make up 90 percent of a product and can sometimes be more hazardous than the active ingredients. -Washington Toxics Coalition
- The term pesticide includes many kinds of ingredients used in products, such as insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, insect repellants, weed killers, antimicrobials, and swimming pool chemicals, which are designed to prevent, destroy, repel, or reduce pests of any sort. http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/stprf.htm
- The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 10,000-20,000 physician-diagnosed pesticide poisonings occur each year among the approximately 3,380,000 U.S. agricultural workers. Agricultural workers, groundskeepers, pet groomers, fumigators, and a variety of other occupations are at risk for exposure to pesticides including fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides, and sanitizers. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/pesticides/
- The Harvard School of Public Health examined 72 children ages 7-8 in a flower-growing region of Ecuador whose mothers were exposed to pesticides during pregnancy and found they had developmental delays of up to four years on aptitude tests. "Cut Flower Industry Relies Heavily on Pesticide Use" International Herald Tribune, Feb. 2007, http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/12/america/LA-GEN-Colombia-Toxic-Flowers.php
- Cotton cultivation comprises only 3 percent of global acreage, but accounts for 25 percent of world insecticide use. –Beacon Press, Juliet Schor and Betsy Taylor, “Sustainable Planet: Solutions for the 21st Century,” 2003
- Toxic wastes from steel mills, paper mills and other industries are allowed to be used in fertilizers, which can contain the highly toxic heavy metals lead, cadmium and arsenic, as well as dioxins. Information on metals levels is not widely available or shown on product labels. –Washington Toxics Coalition, “Holding the Bag, How Toxic Waste in Fertilizers Fails Farmers and Gardeners,” 2001
http://www.watoxics.org/content/pdf/HoldingtheBagreport2.pdf - In July of 2002, the US EPA finalized standards for regulating the practice of turning zinc-bearing industrial waste into fertilizer used on farms, gardens and lawns and limiting the level of contaminants allowed. The ... rule falls short by not requiring consumer labeling of fertilizers made from hazardous waste. Furthermore, the rule covers only zinc micronutrient fertilizers made from waste, leaving the question of the safety of heavy metal contaminants in other types of fertilizers unanswered. Children's Health Environmental Coalition, " New Fertilizer Standards will Regulate Use of Toxic Waste," August 2002, http://www.checnet.org/HealtheHouse/education/articles-detail.asp?Main_ID=486
- In 2005, ten Washington residents agreed to have their their hair, blood, and urine tested for the presence of toxic chemicals. The study revealed that every participant had at least 26 and as many as 39 toxic chemicals in his or her body. A Toxic-Free Legacy Coalition, "Pollution in People: A Study of Toxic Chemicals in Washingtonians," May 2006. http://www.pollutioninpeople.org/results/download
- Monitoring by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Washington State Department of Ecology has found 23 different pesticides in small streams around Puget Sound. More pesticides were found in urban streams than agricultural streams. –Washington Toxics Coalition, 2001
- Surface-water testing shows five major watersheds in Pacific states are contaminated by pesticides. The U.S. Geological Survey detected 35 or more pesticides in each of the five watersheds studied in the region. Sixteen of these pesticides contaminate the region’s watersheds at harmful levels. –Washington Toxics Coalition and Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, “Poisoned Waters, Pesticide Contamination of Waters and Solutions to Protect Pacific Salmon,” Pollyanna Lind, January 2002
http://www.watoxics.org/files/poisoned-waters.pdf - Testing done by the Centers for Disease Control found pesticides in 100% of the people who had both blood and urine tested. The average person in this group carried a toxic cocktail of 13 of the 23 pesticides that were analyzed. Many of the pesticides found in the test subjects have been linked to serious short- and long-term health effects including infertility, birth defects and childhood and adult cancers. Pesticide Action Network, "Chemical Trespass: Pesticides in Our Bodies and Corporate Accountability," May 2004, http://www.panna.org/docsTrespass/chemicalTrespass2004.dv.html
- Children who have been exposed to household insecticides and professional extermination methods within the home are three to seven times more likely to develop non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma compared with children who have not been exposed to pesticides. American Cancer Society
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_1_1x_Pesticides_May_Increase_Risk_of_Non_Hodgkin%E2%80%99s_Lymphoma_in_Children.asp - Women who are regularly exposed to pesticides in the workplace are twice as likely to develop a common form of brain cancer. National Cancer Institute, "Occupational Exposure to Pesticides and Risk of Adult Brain Tumors," September 2008
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/578419 - On average, 18 pounds of pesticides are used, per acre, per year on golf courses. This compares to 2.7 pounds used, per acre, per year, in agriculture. –Worldwatch Institute, “Matters of Scale: Planet Golf,” March/April 2004
http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/mag/2004/172/mos - A common chemical used in pyrethroid insecticides (3-phenozybenzoic acid) is found in much of the U.S. population. –U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals,” July 2005
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/pdf/factsheet_pyrethroids.pdf - About 5 percent of the U.S. population aged 20 years and older has cadmium levels that put them at risk for kidney injury and low bone-mineral density. –U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals,” July 2005
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/pdf/factsheet_cadmium.pdf - Phthalates are a family of chemicals used in a variety of consumer products such as cosmetics and other personal care products, pesticides, building maintenance products, lubricants, adhesives, film, and medical devices. Data from the Centers for Disease Control show an estimated 5% of women of reproductive age from the general population are contaminated with 75% or more of the amount of just one of the phthalates, DBP, that may begin to impair normal reproductive tract development in their baby boys. Health Care Without Harm, "Aggregate Exposures to Phthalates in Humans," July 2002,
http://www.noharm.org/details.cfm?ID=813&type=document - Parabens, which are used as preservatives in many thousands of cosmetic, food and pharmaceutical products to which the human population is exposed, were discovered in a sample of 20 breast tumors from women with breast cancer. "Concentrations of parabens in human breast tumours," Journal of Applied Toxicology,Vol. 24, January 2004.
- Two ounces of ethylene glycol antifreeze can kill a dog, 1 teaspoon can be lethal to a cat and 2 tablespoons can be hazardous to children. http://www.seco.noaa.gov/ENV/Factsheets/antifreeze.html
- A chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic, Bisphenol-A, is one of the top 50 chemicals produced in the U.S. and a known hormone disrupter. Polycarbonate plastics are used to make reusable food and beverage containers, including most baby bottles and many five-gallon water jugs. –National Research Council, 2000
- Exposure to phthalates is widespread in the U.S. Phthalates are “plasticizers,” the name given to a group of chemicals that soften and increase the flexibility of plastics and vinyl, which have demonstrated reproductive toxicity in animal studies. –U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals,” July 2005
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/3rd/pdf/thirdreport.pdf - The average level of bromine-based fire retardants in the milk of 20 first-time mothers was 75 times the average found in recent European studies. Brominated fire retardants (found in many consumer products such as children’s pajamas, mattresses and major electronics) impair attention, learning, memory, and behavior in laboratory animals at surprisingly low levels. The most sensitive time for toxic effects is during periods of rapid brain development. –Environmental Working Group, “Mothers’ Milk Record Levels of Toxic Fire Retardants Found in American Mothers’ Breast Milk,” Sonya Lunder and Renee Sharp, September 2003
http://www.ewg.org/reports_content/mothersmilk/pdf/mothersmilk_final.pdf - An average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants were found in umbilical cord blood from 10 randomly selected babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. –Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns, Environmental Working Group, 2005
http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/ - The percentage of children aged 1 to 5 years with elevated blood lead levels has decreased from 4.4 percent in the early 1990s to 1.6 percent for the period between 1999 and 2002 due to federal programs to reduce lead emissions and exposure. –U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals,” July 2005
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/3rd/pdf/thirdreport.pdf - Nearly 6 percent of women of childbearing age in the U.S. have levels of mercury close to those associated with causing neurodevelopmental effects in a fetus. –U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals,” July 2005
http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/3rd/pdf/thirdreport.pdf - Mercury emissions from factories and power plants travel thousands of miles in the air and drop into oceans and lakes. Some mercury found in rain may have come from sources as far as 1,550 miles away. –The Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry, “Mercury: Toxicological Profile for Mercury,” March 1999, Section 5.3.1
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp46-c5.pdf - Nine chlorine factories are among the nation’s largest sources of mercury in 2002. Each factory reported emitting an average of 1,097 pounds of mercury into the air in 2002, five times more than the average coal-fired power plant. –Oceana, “Poison Plants: Chlorine Factories are a Major Source of Global Mercury,” Dawn Winalski, Sandra Mayson, Jacqueline Savitz January 2005
http://www.oceana.org/index.php?id=686