Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (Resource Recovery) is encouraging residents looking to dispose of household hazardous waste to visit Eco-Depot on Saturday, August 11 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at Resource Recovery located at 65 Shun Pike in Johnston. Created in 2001, the Eco-Depot program is a free service offered that provides for the proper handling, packaging, storage, transportation and disposal of household hazardous waste. Since its inception, Resource Recovery has collected approximately 11.9 million pounds of household hazardous waste and served more than 155,000 Rhode Islanders (and counting).

Many common household items are actually household hazardous waste materials that cannot be collected through Rhode Island’s standard trash and recycling collection services. Household hazardous waste is anything labeled with a skull and crossbones, or words like 'toxic', 'poison', 'flammable', 'combustible', etc These materials include: fluorescent light bulbs, gasoline, pesticides, oil-based paints, disinfectants, used motor oil and lawn and pool chemicals. When not properly collected and disposed, these materials can cause harm to the local environment by contaminating Rhode Island’s waterways. For a full list of household hazardous waste materials, please visit www.ecodepotri.org.

In addition to household hazardous waste, properly prepared sharps (i.e. needles, lancets) are also accepted at Eco-Depot collections. For sharps to be accepted for disposal, they must be secured either in a sharps container or a puncture-proof plastic bleach, detergent or coffee container that is taped shut and labeled “SHARPS.” Sharps containers prepared in this method can also be disposed of with regular trash collection.

Eco-Depot is available to Rhode Island residents only, and to help reduce time spent in line, appointments should be made in advance. To make an appointment for the collection or to view the entire 2018 Eco-Depot schedule, visit www.ecodepotri.org or call 942-1430 x241.