Toxic Waste vs. Hazardous Waste: What’s the Difference?

A lot of people use the terms toxic waste and hazardous waste interchangeably. But according to federal and state regulations, they aren’t exactly the same thing. It’s necessary to have a detailed understanding of the differences between toxic waste and hazardous waste to protect your company from heavy fines or legal consequences. In this hands-on comparison, we’ll help you uncover the differences.

What is Toxic Waste?

Toxic waste is a highly dangerous subcategory of hazardous waste. If toxic waste enters your body through any route, including ingestion, inhalation, absorption, or injection, it can cause injury, illness, or possibly death. It’s important to dispose of toxic waste to prevent health issues like congenital disabilities, neurological disorders, heart defects, and developmental disorders. Toxic waste is generated by various healthcare centers, industries, agrochemical production, commercial waste, households, veterinarians, and more.

Examples of Toxic Waste

Here are some examples of toxic waste:

• Pesticides
• Oil-based paint
• Bleach
• Medical waste
• Asbestos
• Brake fluid
• Petroleum
• Heavy metals

What is Hazardous Waste?

The category of hazardous waste includes any waste regulated by the EPA under RCRA regulations. It includes toxic waste and waste that is ignitable, corrosive, or reactive. This category contains substances that can threaten people’s health or harm the environment. Hazardous waste can be generated by many sources, including factories, chemical manufacturing, the medical industry, businesses, and even households.

Examples of Hazardous Waste

Some of the examples of hazardous waste are as follows:

• Cleaning products
• Fluorescent tubes
• Pesticides
• Batteries
• Solvents
• Biological Waste

Categories of Hazardous Waste

Hazardous waste is any waste that is toxic, reactive, ignitable, or corrosive. It is helpful to understand what belongs in each of these categories.

1. Toxic Waste

Toxic waste includes waste that is harmful when inhaled or absorbed in any way. It is generated through numerous products that we use in our daily lives, like batteries, pesticides, and oil paints.

2. Reactive Waste

Reactive waste undergoes rapid chemical decomposition when it comes into contact with external forces. This category includes waste that is water-reactive, shock-sensitive, or pyrophoric.

3. Ignitable Waste

Ignitable waste can pose a potential danger if you don’t manage it properly. Some examples are motor oil, household cleaners, automobile batteries, pesticides, and drain cleaners. When storing ignitable waste, you need to seal, label, and store the container safely in a designated area. You also need to make sure that there is no risk of it leaking.

4. Corrosive Waste

Corrosive waste includes strong substances like alkalines or acids. When it comes into contact with other substances, this waste undergoes a chemical reaction and destroys any solid material or living tissue it touches. Battery acid is the most common example.

Differentiating Toxic and Hazardous Waste

Hazardous waste is potentially harmful to people and the environment. Toxic waste is a subcategory of hazardous waste that is even more dangerous and sometimes even fatal. In other words, some hazardous waste can be toxic, but not all hazardous waste is toxic. However, all toxic waste is hazardous. Hazardous waste is an umbrella term that includes a wide variety of waste products.

Is it Possible to Recycle Toxic and Hazardous Wastes?

The EPA has developed hazardous and toxic waste recycling regulations to encourage the reuse and reclamation of useful materials. This ensures that waste is disposed of without posing any harm to the environment, animals, or human life. Hazardous and toxic waste is said to be recycled if it’s used, reused, or reclaimed. It’s not only possible to recycle these wastes, but doing so offers various benefits. Recycling these wastes protects scarce natural resources, avoids environmental hazards, and offers economic advantages.

Dispose of Toxic and Hazardous Waste Safely

Here, we’ve listed some of the ways to dispose of toxic and hazardous waste safely:

1. Incineration

Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves burning waste in a controlled environment. Generally conducted in an incinerator, this method gets rid of waste and creates byproducts that can be recycled.

2. Ocean Dumping

Ocean dumping is done to avoid the contamination of underground water. However, hazardous waste must be treated using suitable methods before being disposed of in the ocean. It’s essential to treat hazardous waste before disposing of it. If it is not treated, it will harm marine life as well as contaminate seafood.

3. Underground Disposal

For disposal of medical waste, laboratory experiments, radioactive ore mining, or nuclear fuel production waste, underground disposal is the right disposal solution. It generally causes less leakage and is resistant to impact from natural phenomena like earthquakes and floodwater. In this method, your disposal service providers dispose of and dump waste below the surface of the soil.

4. Landfill Disposal

This is the oldest and most common method of waste disposal since landfills are lined with nonporous material to prevent waste from seeping into the ground. This disposal method is safe if it is executed properly. However, if there’s any kind of leakage, it can affect the environment and anyone living in the area.

Conclusion

Toxic and hazardous waste management is possible when you know the differences between them. It’s important to have a thorough understanding of the types of waste to protect yourself and the environment. You can minimize, recycle, and properly treat waste to reduce the amount of hazardous and toxic waste.