Wastes Banned From the Trash

 

 

 

Many common products we use daily contain potentially hazardous materials and require special care when disposed of.
Disposing of hazardous waste in the garbage, down storm drains, or onto the ground is illegal. 

Check with your local waste management agency to find out where to take these items.

Lights, Batteries, and Electronics 

  • Fluorescent lamps and tubes. Includes fluorescent tubes, compact fluorescent lamps, metal halide lamps, and sodium vapor lamps. LED lights should not be placed in the trash because they often contain metals in amounts that exceed threshold limits. For more information on LED lights, visit DTSC’s Regulatory Assistance webpage.
  • Batteries. Includes all batteries, AAA, AA, C, D, button cell, 9-volt, and all others, both rechargeable and single-use. Also lead-acid batteries such as car batteries.
  • Computer and television monitors. Most monitors are considered hazardous waste when ready for recycling or disposal, including cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal diode (LCD), and plasma monitors. Learn about the State program to offset the cost of proper television and monitor recycling.
  • Electronic devices (E-Waste). Includes computers, printers, VCRs, cell phones, telephones, radios, and microwave ovens.

Do not throw electronic devices in the trash!

The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has tested many electronic devices, including tube-type and flat panel televisions and computer monitors, laptop computers, computers central processing units (CPU), printers, radios, microwave ovens, video cassette recorders (VCR), cell phones, cordless phones, and telephone answering machines.

The devices that DTSC tested contained concentrations of metals (lead and copper) high enough to make them hazardous wastes when they are discarded. 

Household and Landscape Chemicals

  • Flammables and poisons. Includes solvent-based (oil) paints and reactive and explosive materials.
  • Acids, oxidizers, and bases. Includes some pool chemicals and cleaners.
  • Pesticides and herbicides. Many pesticides and herbicides cannot be disposed in the trash. Consult the product label or check with your local household hazardous waste agency.

Paints and Solvents

  • Latex paint.
  • Oil-based paint (also listed under flammables).
  • Nonempty aerosol paint or solvent cans (all nonempty aerosol cans are banned from the trash).
  • Solvents. Includes materials such as paint thinners, finger nail polish remover, etc.

Automobile-Related

Mercury-Containing Items

  • Electrical switches and relays. These 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.
  • Thermostats that contain mercury. There is a mercury inside the sealed glass “tilt switch” of the old style thermostats (not the newer electronic kind).
  • 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 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.

Building Materials

  • Asbestos. Includes some older kinds of cement, roofing, flooring and siding. More information on asbestos in your home is available from the U.S. EPA.
  • Treated Wood. Wood that has been treated with chemical preservatives to help protect it from insect and fungal decay while being used; this includes wood that is treated with chromium copper arsenate (CCA). As of January 1, 2021, treated wood waste must be managed as a hazardous waste. The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has a reference page with information regarding the current rules for handling treated wood waste.

Other

  • Compressed gas cylinders. Includes propane tanks used for BBQ or plumbing.
  • PCB-containing materials. Includes paint and ballasts that contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB).
  • Photo waste (silver bearing).
  • Nonempty 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 more information contact, the Office of Public Affairs, opa@calrecycle.ca.gov