Residents in Geelong and surrounding communities are being encouraged to clean out unwanted household and garden chemicals ahead of the Detox your Home event coming to Geelong on Saturday August 13.
Running for more than 27 years, Sustainability Victoria’s Detox your Home is a free and convenient service for residents to safely dispose of chemicals making homes safer and protecting the environment.
Common products such as weedkiller, pesticides, cleaning chemicals, cosmetics, and cooking oil are all materials harmful to the environment and should not be placed in kerbside bins or tipped down the drain.
Pouring household chemicals down the drain will pollute our waterways, harm animals and vegetation and contaminate our water supply.
The program has seen the safe removal of 7000 tonnes of toxic chemicals – equivalent to the weight of 40 trams – and over 10,000 tonnes of hard-to-recycle materials from households around the state.
On average Victorians who use the program bring an average of 23kg of waste for disposal, with two thirds of people reporting they’ve had their toxic materials for over five years.
Detox your Home events are staffed by expert chemists who identify and sort the chemicals for safe transport back to a licenced facility in Melbourne where they are processed for reuse or safe disposal.
Chemicals collected are processed and recovered or recycled wherever possible. If they cannot be reused in any way, they are safely disposed of.
The event is on Saturday August 13 from 9am to 2pm at Corio Operations Centre, 299 Anakie Road.
