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Household Hazardous Waste (HHW)
Orange County has one of the most extensive and efficient household hazardous waste collection programs in Southern California. This includes four permanent collection facilities open five days a week, including Saturdays, offering fast drive-up and drop-off service.
Household Hazardous Waste Collection Centers (HHWCC)
An HHWCC is a free, easy, drive-through operation that collects home, vehicle, and yard care products containing chemicals and toxins. These products cannot be put into your residential trash because they cannot be disposed in the landfills without risking contamination to groundwater and they cannot be dumped into storm drains without contaminating our oceans. They also cannot be dumped into the sewers, as they kill the beneficial bacteria needed to treat sewage. The HHWCCs accept these materials from Orange County residents and recycle, reuse, or dispose of them in an environmentally responsible way. The collection centers accept products such as latex and oil-based paint, antifreeze, batteries, used oil, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, hobby supplies and more.
For addresses of the centers, operating hours, accepted materials, and how to transport materials to the centers, see:
Stop & Swap
Visit the Stop and Swap! The Stop and Swap is a unique and free program that allows you to drop off household, yard, and car care products you no longer need and pick up others you can use. For more information about the household hazardous waste collection program and the Stop and Swap, call 714-834-6752.
Transportation & Handling
- A maximum of 15 gallons or 125 pounds may be transported per vehicle, per trip. This is a Department of Transportation Regulation.
- Materials should be in original containers (except motor oil, fuels and antifreeze).
- All containers must have lids, be sturdy, non-leaking, and protected from breakage.
- Do not combine types of waste.
- Do not mix oil-based paint with latex paint.
- Dry out empty paint cans and discard in regular trash.
- If you wish to have a container returned (oil containers and boxes/crates used to transport materials), please notify the attendant in advance. Some containers may not be returnable.
Disposal of Compact Fluorescent Bulbs and Batteries
It is illegal to put compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) and batteries in the trash due to the toxic chemical contained in them. In San Juan Capistrano you can take your CFLs and batteries to:
- Ganahl Lumber
34162 Doheny Park Road - DeNault's Hardware
31862 Del Obispo Street - City Hall
32400 Paseo Adelanto - The Community Center
25925 Camino del Avion
All these locations have disposal boxes for your CFLs and batteries. When dropping off CFLs, please place in the bag provided and please only put CFL bulbs in the designated bins.
How to Dispose of Leftover Paint
Paint should be disposed of or recycled in a safe way that will not adversely affect our planet. Paint cans containing unused paint can be taken to the following local paint drop-off sites:
- Dunn Edwards
32061 Camino Capistrano - Vista Paint
31894 Plaza Drive - Orange County San Juan Capistrano HHW Collection Center
32250 La Pata Ave - Sherwin-Williams
34222 Doheny Park Rd, Dana Point