Q: Where can I take my Household Hazardous Waste?
A. Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) is any unwanted household product labeled as flammable, toxic, corrosive, or reactive. The most common products include aerosols, anti-freeze, asbestos, fertilizers, motor oil, paint supplies, photo chemicals, poisons, and solvents.
Improper disposal of these products is not only illegal, but can contaminate drinking water, pollute the bay, and seriously injure garbage and recycling collection and landfill employees. Santa Clara County’s Household Hazardous Waste Program offers a free disposal program to all residents to ensure safe disposal. To find out more information on HHW and future collection events visit www.hhw.org or call (408) 299-7300.
Stanford Faculty Staff residents have a unique curbside and drop off program for 5 Universal Waste items. Click here to learn more about this program that is specifically for Stanford Faculty Staff residents only. Residential identification required.
Paint Can Tip: If you have only a small amount of paint in a paint can, allow the paint to dry. Then remove the lid and you can place the can in your Plastics, Metal, and Glass recycling bin.
Q: Where can I go to find some used paint or other products that are consider household hazardous waste?
A. Did you ever need just a little jar of paint for touch ups or a small bag of garden chemicals? Unused or left-over paint, cleaning products and garden chemicals are not hazardous waste if someone else can use them. Each household hazardous waste collection event site has a “shop” where customers can pick up free products including paints and thinners, pool chemicals, fertilizers, household cleaners, and automotive fluids. Call the HHW Program at (408) 299-7300 or visit www.hhw.org for more information.
Q: What is the new Universal Waste law (2006) and how does it effect me?
A. The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has made the decision to not extend the temporary exemption allowing universal wastes from households and conditionally exempt small quantity universal waste generators to be disposed in the trash. After February 9, 2006, it is illegal for residents and small businesses to dispose of fluorescent lamps, household batteries, and other “Universal Waste” in the trash. Under the rule, “Universal Waste” is defined as batteries, mercury thermostats, fluorescent lights, cathode ray tube devices (computer monitors, televisions), mercury thermometers, and other products containing mercury or other heavy metals.
Q: What is Universal Waste?
A. Universal wastes are hazardous wastes that are generated by several sectors of society, rather than a single industry or type of businesses. Hazardous wastes contain harmful chemicals, which, if put in the trash may harm people or the environment.
Universal wastes include:
- Common Batteries – AA, AAA, C cells, D cells and button batteries (e.g. hearing aid batteries). These may contain a corrosive chemical that can cause burns as well as toxic heavy metals like cadmium. (Automotive type batteries are not universal waste. When they become waste, they are regulated under a different law.)
- Fluorescent Tubes and Bulbs and Other Mercury-Containing Lamps – Fluorescent light tubes and bulbs, high intensity discharge (HID), metal halide, sodium, and neon bulbs. These lights contain mercury vapor that may be released to the environment when they are broken. Mercury is a toxic metal that can cause harm to people and animals including nerve damage and birth defects. If mercury is released into the environment it can contaminate the air we breathe and enter streams, rivers, and the ocean, where it can contaminate fish that people eat.
- Thermostats – There is mercury inside the sealed glass "tilt switch" of the old style thermostats (not the newer electronic kind).
- Electronic Devices such as: televisions and computer monitors, computers, printers, VCRs, cell phones, telephones, radios, and microwave ovens. These devices often contain heavy metals like lead, cadmium, copper, and chromium.
- Electrical Switches and Relays typically contain about 3.5 grams of mercury each. Mercury switches can be found in some chest freezers, pre-1972 washing machines, sump pumps, electric space heaters, clothes irons, silent light switches, automobile hood and trunk lights, and ABS brakes.
- Pilot Light Sensors – Mercury-containing switches are found in some gas appliances such as stoves, ovens, clothes dryers, water heaters, furnaces and space heaters
- Mercury Gauges – Some gauges, such as barometers, manometers, blood pressure, and vacuum gauges contain mercury.
- Mercury Added Novelties - Examples include greeting cards that play music when opened; athletic shoes (made before 1997) with flashing lights in soles; and mercury maze games.
- Mercury Thermometers – Mercury thermometers typically contain about a half gram of mercury. Many health clinics, pharmacies and doctor’s offices have thermometer exchange programs that will give you a new mercury-free fever thermometer in exchange for your old one.
- Non-Empty Aerosol Cans that Contain Hazardous Materials – Many products in aerosol cans are toxic. And many aerosol cans contain flammables, like butane, as propellants for products like paint. If your aerosol can is labeled with words like TOXIC or FLAMMABLE don’t put it in the trash unless it is completely empty.
For a complete list and more details, please visit: https://www.dtsc.ca.gov/HazardousWaste/UniversalWaste/upload/UW_Factsheet1.pdf
Q: How do I know if a particular electronic device can’t be thrown in the trash?
A. Complete list of universal waste products, and information about disposal and recycling options, is available on the DTSC Web site at http://www.dtsc.ca.gov/HazardousWaste/UniversalWaste/Index.cfm
Q: Why have these items been banned from the landfill?
A. Like used motor oil and paint, universal waste is a kind of hazardous waste. It is illegal to dispose of hazardous waste in the garbage. The goal is to encourage Californians to recycle or properly dispose fluorescent lamps, batteries, thermostats and electronic devices. These products contain toxic substances such as mercury, lead, and cadmium. Mercury, released into the environment through the improper disposal of mercury-containing products, is a known neurotoxin. Eventually, chemicals in illegally disposed hazardous waste can be released into the environment and contaminate our air, water, soil, and possibly the food we eat, potentially causing serious health problems in humans and wildlife.
Q: If I can’t throw this stuff in the trash how do I get rid of it?
A. You can help prevent this contamination of the environment by recycling all batteries, fluorescent lamps, including low-mercury lamps, compact bulbs, and straight, circular, spiral and U-bent tubes, and other universal and hazardous waste. Please do not put these items in the garbage or curbside recycling bins. To recycle these products free of charge, call the Santa Clara County Household Hazardous Waste Program at (408) 299-7300 or visit www.hhw.org for a list of drop off locations.
Stanford Faculty Staff residents have a unique curbside and drop off program for 5 Universal Waste items. Click here to learn more about this program that is specifically for Stanford Faculty Staff residents only. Residential identification required.
Q: Why can't we recycle our household batteries at the Stanford Recycling Center?
A. We are not permitted to collect batteries from the public. Batteries are not easily recyclable either physically in terms of separating the constituent materials or economically in terms of the cost to separate the different metals and recycle them. As of February 9, 2006, California State law states that batteries are not allowed to be landfilled because of the hazards they contain and the chance of them leaking out of the landfill and into our groundwater system (see above two questions on Universal Waste). You should take them to a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Event for safe disposal. Find out when the next event is by calling the Santa Clara County Household Hazardous Waste Program at (408) 299-7300 or visit www.hhw.org. The best way to avoid this problem all together is to purchase a battery recharging system and rechargeable batteries. Faculty and staff can dispose of batteries from academic buildings through the Department of Environmental Health and Safety battery recycling program. Please click here for more information.
Stanford Faculty Staff residents have a unique curbside and drop off program for 5 Universal Waste items. Click here to learn more about this program that is specifically for Stanford Faculty Staff residents only. Residential identification required.
Q: Where can I recycle my used motor oil?
A: The Stanford Recycling Center does not accept motor oil, antifreeze, or batteries. There are some local companies that will take motor oil, antifreeze, and car batteries. For a more complete listing or other suggestions, call Santa Clara County's Household Hazardous Waste Program at (408) 299-7300 or visit www.hhw.org.
Stanford Faculty Staff residents have a unique curbside and drop off program for 5 Universal Waste items. Click here to learn more about this program that is specifically for Stanford Faculty Staff residents only. Residential identification required.
Q: Where can I recycle my laptop battery?
A. You can find local retailers to take rechargeable batteries from laptop computers, cordless power tools, cellular and cordless phones, and camcorders at the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation’s website https://www.call2recycle.org/. The following rechargeable batteries can be recycled - Nickel Cadmium (Ni-Cd), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), Lithium Ion (Li-ion), and Small Sealed Lead (Pb). Look for the Battery Recycling Seal on the battery. Once you take it to the retailer, they ship them to a recycling facility for processing. The reclaimed materials can be used in new products - such as new batteries and stainless steel products. By recycling your used rechargeable batteries, you help to create a cleaner and safer environment, keeping harmful rechargeable battery by-products out of landfills and the solid waste stream.
Q: How do I dispose of used injection needles?
A. Needles, also known as “household sharps” or “medical sharps”, disposed in the garbage or recyclables poses a great danger to solid waste collectors. Governor Schwarzenegger approved of SB 1305 (Figueroa) July 12, 2006 which would prohibit the disposal of home-generated hypodermic needles in household trash as well as recycling and green waste containers. Every year more than 2 billion needles and syringes are used nationwide outside of healthcare settings and most end up in trash or recycling containers. This law will take effect September 2008. Since sharps are considered household hazardous waste, PSSI does not collect them. Santa Clara County’s Household Hazardous Waste Program accepts sharps during its monthly collection events. For more information, please call (408) 299-7300 or visit www.hhw.org.
Q: How do I dispose of a refrigerator?
A. Refrigerators and freezers must have the freon and oil evacuated by a certified technician before disposal or recycling. PSSI provides this service for a fee which includes pick up, removal of hazardous material, and recycling. If the hazardous materials have been removed, PSSI will accept refrigerators free of charge or charge a small fee to pick it up on your curb. Please call 321-4236 or email for current rates.
