It is best to dispose of small quantities at a time as the waste material is generated, rather than to stockpile waste and then try to dispose of a large bulk at one time. These methods are only applicable to some innocuous chemicals. Since the environmental legislation is rapidly evolving these procedures may cease to be available for some materials in the future. It is therefore wise to find out before using these routes that it is still acceptable to do so. Disposal by chemical treatment Some chemicals can be made innocuous by neutralisation and then washed down the sink with copious amounts of water.
Many chemicals have to be disposed of via a specialist disposal firm.
The firm will dispose of the chemicals by a variety of methods suitable to the particular properties and hazards of each chemical. When there are only a few chemicals to be disposed of it may be very expensive for each department to deal directly with the disposal company since the transport cost becomes a very large percentage of the bill. The name of the department, a contact name for the department, a list with the name of each chemical, the number of containers of each chemical, and the weight or volume of each container's contents. The department will receive an estimate of the disposal cost and will be invoiced for this amount when the disposal has taken place.