It’s that time of year again! While you’re spring cleaning over the next week, make sure you set aside hazardous waste for the annual Centre County Household Hazardous Waste collection.

It’s an event that not only allows you to recycle, but could also save your life, and others.

This is about the 25th year for the hazardous waste collection event. Joanne Shafer said last year, the Centre County Recycle and Refuse Authority collected about 72,000 pounds of waste.

“It is a very expensive proposition. It costs about a dollar a pound for the proper handling of this material,” Shafer, Executive Director, said. “Things like latex paint, that are not hazardous, can be handled in a different way.”

Instead, you should bring things like insecticides, weed killers, pool chemicals, cleaners, flammables and oil-based paint. For a complete list of items you should and should not bring, click here.

“Most people don’t appreciate that there are a lot of seemingly every day chemicals in the home that do not play well with one another,” Steve Bair, Centre Region Council of Governments Fire Director said.

Bair said firefighters often respond to scenes where people have mixed those types of chemicals.

“One of the most common mistakes is mixing an ammonia based product with chlorine based product,” he said. “That puts off a poison gas and it will knock you down.”

This year, the center asks that you bring a canned good or non-perishable item to be donated to the Central Pennsylvania Food Bank.

The collection event will be held on April 28 and 29.