P65 warning?

[Dave2002]

I've just been given a plastic bag which had contained a new iPad cover recently delivered from Amazon, to dispose of. On the bag there is a warning about Cancer and Reproductive Harm - which applies in California under Proposition 65 - see https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/

Since we are no longer living in California, but have been in the UK for most of the last couple of decades, what exactly are we supposed to do with the bag?
Or alternatively, what are we not supposed to do with it?

I was proposing to put it in the recycling bin.

Does the warning mean that we can only get Cancer or experience Reproductive harm if we are on the west coast of the USA?

[french frank]

I've just been given a plastic bag which had contained a new iPad cover recently delivered from Amazon, to dispose of. On the bag there is a warning about Cancer and Reproductive Harm - which applies in California under Proposition 65 - see https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/

Since we are no longer living in California, but have been in the UK for most of the last couple of decades, what exactly are we supposed to do with the bag?
Or alternatively, what are we not supposed to do with it?

I was proposing to put it in the recycling bin.

Does the warning mean that we can only get Cancer or experience Reproductive harm if we are on the west coast of the USA?

Don't you have a 'local' hazardous waste disposal centre, operated by the council?

[Dave2002]

Don't you have a 'local' hazardous waste disposal centre, operated by the council?

Very possibly, but is it really so hazardous? With next to no information it's impossible to say.

My guess is that I'd be laughed at by the guys down at the dump if I took what otherwise looks like a plastic bag down there.

There is no indication on the bag as to what the hazardous components are.

So my question remains effectively - "are we all supposed now to adopt California's suggestions as to what is hazardous, and use their suggested approach to minimising risk, or do we simply ignore them?"

Without some form of global, or at least continent wide agreement with reasonable consistency the information on the bag is confusing.

It's also not as if this is a recent thing, as the P65 rules have been in place for a considerable time.

So surely there should be some advice/harmonisation with other areas of the world.

[french frank]

Dig a deep hole and bury it, or

Put it in your refuse bin, or

Light a bonfire, wrap the bag round a piece of dry wood or firelighter, toss it on the fire and run away very quickly.

[Old Grumpy]

Must say, at the first reading of the title I thought this thread was about an HMRC tax form

[Cockney Sparrow]

Must say, at the first reading of the title I thought this thread was about an HMRC tax form

Me too!
Suggestion - send it back (the plastic bag) from whence it came - then its their problem.......

[Pulcinella]

Must say, at the first reading of the title I thought this thread was about an HMRC tax form

Me too!

[Nick Armstrong]

Must say, at the first reading of the title I thought this thread was about an HMRC tax form

So did I !

[Serial_Apologist]

This thread does also raise another topic that should not go to waste - namely "new rules" impending on waste disposal, according to Southwark Council's leaflet via their refuse merchants Veiola, which are going to prove problematic for our block of flats, and probably most similar. Up to now we've been permitted to dump food waste in the landfill-destined green bins, from whenever these come in we will be required to have a special food disposal bin. Furthermore only one plastic bagful of general household waste per flat will be permitted for disposal per week. That will do fine for someone like solitary me, but next door get delivery stuff every day, as do others in here - every time I pop out a delivery person is carting or carrying big cardboard packages up the garden paths, the bulky cardboard packaging from which then gets crammed into our bins. Dulwich Estate, under whose auspices we have to comply, are always insistent on keeping up appearances; it was they, I was told, who insisted on having a special bins compound out of sight and round at the extreme end of the block, where the green and blue recyclables wheely bins are penned; there is no room for the presumably large food waste bin the council intends imposing - it will have to be placed at the far end of the garage drive and be very visible. General bins will not even accept small electrical items such as, presumably dud irons, toasters and textiles - one of the tenants here operates a seamstress business, you can imagine how many bits of cotton, wool, felt etc find their way to landfill from here.

Pre-Covid one could run bigger but still easily portable items like old stereos down to the Lambeth recycling centre, half a mile down the road. That then ended, and our "local" site is 6 miles away, in north Peckham. They also introduced online booking for when you were allowed to turn up!!! How do you get your defunct hi-fi down there without owning a car or generous neighbours with time on their hands? By bus?? Or taxi?????: For stuff such as old mattresses you want taken away you again book in advance (obviously) and it's a £35 pound charge for no more than 10 items max - when I first came here 18 years ago it was a free service.

As for expecting (or insisting on) bottles, tins etc to be properly washed out prior to disposing for recycling, I just gave up on this over a year ago after sellotaping repeated politely worded requests to bin lids, and transferring non-recyclables into the general bins when one bin lid slammed down slicing through my nose as I was doing this. Subsequently it has seemed that the bin people have given up on their initial insistence on instructions being followed or bins would not be emptied... so much for "recycling"! However, if "some" residents - and everyone knows who they are - don't play ball with the new regs, how is the council going to decide which flats are to blame? Or are we all to suffer "collective punishment", to deploy a currently not overused term?

[oddoneout]

Don't you have a 'local' hazardous waste disposal centre, operated by the council?

My local facility only takes hazardous waste on certain days in the year, and then only certain categories, such as paint. In the tidy up after the work I did before moving into on my current home I had several part tins of paint which I didn't need to keep, which in the past were accepted at the tip and sent to a charitable/community interest re-use set-up. "Oh we don't do that anymore". On asking what the alternative arrangements were I was told with relish that I'd missed this year's weekend for paint disposal but there was a site which took it all year round. Minor detail, it was best part of a 60 mile round trip... The really annoying thing was finding out much later that the paint re-use operation was still very much functioning - I had assumed it had stopped and that was why the paint was no longer being collected at the tip - but the reason was that the council hadn't renewed the contract for whatever reason.
Out of curiosity I looked up what the arrangements are now and found that there aren't any "always available" options now, and the next county campaign days are in Autumn 2024. Advice is to only buy the right amount of paint; offer surplus to friends, community organisations, freecycle etc; allow the tins to dry out then put them in the general waste wheelie bin. All of which does a really good job of preventing hazardous waste from damaging the environment by being disposed of unsuitably or just dumped... except we don't live in an ideal world with ideal people.

[Old Grumpy]

This thread does also raise another topic...
...For stuff such as old mattresses you want taken away you again book in advance (obviously) and it's a £35 pound charge for no more than 10 items max - when I first came here 18 years ago it was a free

£35 for up to ten items?

You were lucky!...


...£30 for two items round here!

[Serial_Apologist]

My local facility only takes hazardous waste on certain days in the year, and then only certain categories, such as paint. In the tidy up after the work I did before moving into on my current home I had several part tins of paint which I didn't need to keep, which in the past were accepted at the tip and sent to a charitable/community interest re-use set-up. "Oh we don't do that anymore". On asking what the alternative arrangements were I was told with relish that I'd missed this year's weekend for paint disposal but there was a site which took it all year round. Minor detail, it was best part of a 60 mile round trip... The really annoying thing was finding out much later that the paint re-use operation was still very much functioning - I had assumed it had stopped and that was why the paint was no longer being collected at the tip - but the reason was that the council hadn't renewed the contract for whatever reason.
Out of curiosity I looked up what the arrangements are now and found that there aren't any "always available" options now, and the next county campaign days are in Autumn 2024. Advice is to only buy the right amount of paint; offer surplus to friends, community organisations, freecycle etc; allow the tins to dry out then put them in the general waste wheelie bin. All of which does a really good job of preventing hazardous waste from damaging the environment by being disposed of unsuitably or just dumped... except we don't live in an ideal world with ideal people.

Notwithstanding which, the amount of fly tipping as a result really is no surprise given that councils impose more and more restrictions and charges for waste disposal. This then ends up costing them more - and us!

[cloughie]

£35 for up to ten items?

You were lucky!...


...£30 for two items round here!

Here it is up to 4 for £33 or £44 for larger special items - I don’t know how big an item has to be, but I may find out before too long as I may need to have a dead inbuilt double oven shifted.