Store Household Chemicals Safely

Keep all medicines, cosmetics, cleaning products, and other household chemicals out of sight and out of reach of children. That means keep all the chemicals you can locked up. What you can not lock up, store high up so your children can not reach the hazardous chemical. And teach your children that they should not play with or even touch chemicals or medications without asking you first.

Do not mix chemicals together – both in storage and use. Know you can not improve a cleaner – for example – by mixing it with another cleaner. What you can do by mixing even like chemicals is hurt yourself. Also, just because two chemicals do the same job does not mean they should be in the same container to save space. The chemicals may create a chemical reaction that can cause a fire or otherwise harm you or a member of your family. Unless you have an advanced degree in chemistry, you have no idea what may happen by mixing chemicals together so do not do it.

And, keeping chemicals in their proper containers allows you to keep the information on a chemical’s container about its safe use and what to do if someone accidentally ingests the chemical. Different chemicals require different poisoning treatment. Keep each chemical in its own container.

If you have chemicals in partially or not labeled containers, throw the chemicals out. You may think you know what is in a bottle but how can you be sure if the chemical is not in its original container? You can not! If a chemical is partially or not labeled, dispose of it.

Also dispose of outdated chemicals. You have had that metal cleaner in your garage for years. No one has mixed it with anything and it is still in its original container so it should be safe. Actually, it is likely unsafe as chemicals – including medications – chemically change over even brief periods of time. They never change into anything useful and frequently into something even more harmful than the original chemical.

The best policy for any chemicals you are unsure about is: IF in doubt, throw it out! How?

Contact your local fire or health department. Experts there will be happy to advise you on the proper disposal of whatever chemicals you need to dispose of. Do NOT just toss the chemical in the garbage with the rest of your trash. You could face heavy fines and/or substantial jail time for improper disposal of an unsafe chemical not to mention some lawsuits from anyone harmed by the chemicals you dumped in the trash.

The four cardinal rules of proper household chemical storage are: