Improper Disposal - YIKES! PLEASE don't do this!

Hazardous materials thrown into the trash often cause fires and release fumes inside the collection truck. Workers can be injured by these fires and fumes, or by being splashed with the material. These materials thrown into the trash often end up in the local landfill. Containers break, materials melt together, rain and melting snow cause materials to seep into the ground and eventually, reach the groundwater below. Or when the trash ends up in the municipal incinerator (as does the trash Southeastern VT) the incinerators do not burn at a high enough temperature to destroy the toxic components of materials and the hazardous pollutants are released into the air!

If poured down the drain, the chemicals flow through sewer pipes to a sewage treatment plant. Most sewage treatment plants cannot remove hazardous materials from the wastewater or from the solid material. Hazardous wastes poured down the drain into septic tanks flow into leaching fields and eventually into groundwater. If a water well or spring is located nearby, it is possible to draw hazardous materials into the well.

Pouring hazardous materials down the street sewers often seeps through the cracks into the ground and eventually into groundwater. When storm sewers drain into rivers, lakes, and streams, hazardous materials go where the water goes. Pouring hazardous materials in your backyard can kill vegetation, harm children and pets, and seep through the soil to the groundwater below!

Safe Disposal - thankfully
The only really safe place to dispose of household hazardous materials is to store them until your community participates in a household hazardous waste collection day. A licensed hauler will then collect the material and take it to an environmentally-safe hazardous waste disposal facility.