Art and Craft Hazardous Waste

Artists use a vast variety of chemicals in many different processes.  For fourteen years, the Center for Safety in the Arts (CSA), has been involved in educating artists and artists groups on the health hazards and precautions that will allow safe use of these art materials.  Perhaps this effort has helped fuel the newest issue: safe disposal of hazardous waste art materials.  As a result of this growing concern, the Environmental Protection Agency has just awarded us a grant for research on this particular topic.  There is increasing knowledge of adverse health effects from exposure to toxic chemicals, along with an awareness of environmental issues and damage caused by unsafe management, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste chemicals contained in household products.  Chemicals such as solvents, acid cleansers, detergents, oils, etc., are poured down the drain or put in the trash without adequate precautions to neutralize the chemicals, many of which should be collected and handled as hazardous waste.  Community environmental groups and some municipalities have organized limited hazardous waste collection and recycling efforts to attempt to provide a location to take hazardous waste and to slow the filling of landfills.

Professional artists, craftspeople, and hobbyists can generate substantial amounts of hazardous waste.   As with household waste, most of these materials are being dumped down the sink.  This can create a significant risk to the water systems, particularly those without proper secondary treatment or in rural locations with septic tanks.  Accurate estimates of the number of professional artists and craftspeople in the United States is difficult.  The 1980 U.S. census reported almost 153,000 people listing their occupation as that of a painter, sculptor, art printer, or craft artist.  From unpublished tabulations from the Department of Labor, there are about 232,000 artists in the same categories as in 1989.  The number of individuals who actually ever use art materials is probably much higher. 

Types of Hazardous Waste

The first step is to fully understand what hazardous waste is.  The general categories that define hazardous waste are ignitability, corrosivity, reactivity, and EP (extraction procedure) toxicity.  In addition, any materials or chemicals listed in the EPA regulations are also considered hazardous waste. 

A few items that are NOT considered hazardous waste include preservative-free sawdust, water-based paints that do not contain metals, clay, old canvas or stretchers, scrap metal, and water-based dyes. Hazardous chemicals generated by artists fall into several categories.

1. Solvents.  Paints and paint thinners, turpentine, paint removers, lacquers and their thinners, varnishes, inks, plastic resins, cleaning solvents, etc. contain a wide variety of solvents widely used by artists, often gallons at a time. 
2. Aerosol spray cans.  A wide variety of aerosol spray cans are used by artists, including spray paints, spray adhesives, spray fixatives, and spray dyes.  There have been accidents due to the puncturing of spray cans in garbage trucks or explosions from throwing partially full cans in incinerators.
3. Acids and alkalis.  Acids, bases, or mixtures having a pH less than or equal to 2, or greater than or equal to 12.5 are considered corrosive.  Printmaking uses large quantities of acids, including nitric, hydrochloric, and phosphoric acids.  Glassblowing and stained glass can use hydrofluoric acid.  Acetic acid and many alkaline chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and potassium carbonate are found in photography.
4. Photochemicals.  Photographic chemicals can include alkalis, silver compounds, ferricyanides, phenolic developers, p-phenylene diamine derivatives, formaldehyde, etc.  The total volume of photographic solutions generated during small-scale photoprocessing can be dozens of gallons daily, although only a few of these gallons would be considered hazardous waste.  In recent years, there has been considerable interest in silver recovery, although most photographers have not considered it cost effective.
5. Metals.  Toxic metals are present in a wide range of art materials such as paint and ink pigments, ceramic glazes, copper enamels, and glassblowing materials.  These include compounds of lead, cadmium, copper, cobalt, chromium, selenium, arsenic, manganese, antimony, etc.  The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Household Hazardous Waste Fact Sheets, published in October 1988, recommend that artists' paints should be saved for a collection program rather than handled like house paint since they contain higher levels of toxic metals than do other paints.
6. Flammable and Combustible Wastes.  Any liquid with a flashpoint of less than 140 F, or non-liquids that can cause fire through friction, absorption of moisture, or spontaneous chemical change, as well as ignitable compressed gas, are considered ignitable.  Examples include epoxies, rubber cement, solvents, and solvent-based paints and inks.
7. Reactives.  Materials that chemically react violently, form explosive mixtures, or produce toxic gases or vapors with water are categorized as reactive.   Examples include: chromic acid, organic peroxides (catalysts in many polyester resin systems), cyanides, (found in photography, electroplating, metalwork, and jewelry cleaning), and potassium chlorate (used in making Dutch Mordant).

Disposal Methods

The various types of disposal methods available include:

• Substitution of less hazardous chemicals (e.g. water-based instead of solvent-based).  Artists and artists' groups should lobby manufacturers to make quality products that are less hazardous in their formulations, making them both safer to use and simpler to discard.  Manufacturers should be persuaded to accept returned unused hazardous products, and provide or fund collection and exchange services.  For example, unopened lead glazes from stockrooms of elementary schools should be returnable to the manufacturer.
• Minimizing the volume of waste generated.  Artists should be trained and educated in using less hazardous products and generating less waste. 
• Using existing recycling programs.
• Setting up recycling programs.  Community centers and artists’ groups can organize swap and exchange programs. 
• Hazardous waste collection programs should accept waste from household artists and hobbyists.  Artists who live and work in different locations should be included with household individuals.  Local legislators could be lobbied to enable "loft" artists to be considered under the same exemptions as household hazardous waste generators under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

Household Hazardous Waste Contacts

In this Resource Issue of Art Hazards News, we have published a list of household hazardous waste contacts across the United Sates and Canada.  Individuals or programs on the list provide collection or referral to collection services for households that generate hazardous waste, including art materials.  Households are granted special exemptions under RCRA.

When an artist works in a location other than the home, waste generated would be considered that of a conditionally exempt generator, even if the physical amounts are the same.  Commercial studios, community centers, artists who run art businesses, and schools would likewise not be eligible for the exempt status that is granted to households.  These definitions are very vague, and there is confusion over the boundaries between the different categories of generators. 

Need for Research

The areas that need further research are the waste stream generated by artists today, available methods of hazardous waste disposal, and applying recommended disposal procedures to artists' hazardous waste.  

The Center for Safety in the Arts intends to carry out the research necessary to develop educational materials on disposal for artists.  There is a clear need for guidelines on disposal for individual artists, craftspeople, and hobbyists, as well as community groups, schools, colleges, institutions, and even small businesses that generate hazardous waste.  Community groups can be educated in their potential use as a site for the collection of individual artists' hazardous waste.  Educating artists about the proper disposal of waste art materials and existing disposal services will result in decreased contamination of water supplies and landfills, particularly in rural areas where only primary waste treatment or septic systems and fields exist. 


Art Hazard News, Volume 14, No. 3, 1991

This article was originally printed for Art Hazard News, © copyright Center for Safety in the Arts 1991. It appears on CAR courtesy of the Health in the Arts Program, University of Illinois at Chicago, who have curated a collection of these articles from their archive which are still relevant to artists today.