Reading Labels
How to read a safety data sheet for a product you already own
A safety data sheet has 16 sections, written for workplaces. Here is where to find one and the four sections that matter most for a bottle under your sink.
Start here
Household product safety, in plain words
Under the Sink is about the bottles, tins and batteries every home collects. We explain what the symbols and words on a label mean, where things are safest kept, which products must never meet, and how to get rid of what you no longer need.
Start with the nine hazard pictograms, or open the safe storage cupboard if there is a small child in the house.
Three cupboards to open first
Read the label
Nine red diamonds, two signal words and a row of small-print phrases. What each one is telling you, on US and European bottles.
Open the cupboard
Store it well
Up high, latched, in the original container. The habits that keep a bottle where it belongs, room by room.
Open the cupboard
Let it go
Old paint, solvents, batteries and half-used aerosols: where household hazardous waste goes, and how to get it there.
Open the cupboardPrevention first
Five habits that do most of the work
- Keep every product in the container it came in, with its label.
- Store the strongest ones high and latched, not under the sink.
- Close the cap until it clicks, every time, even if you will use it again in a minute.
- Use one cleaning product at a time and rinse between them.
- Save the poison center number in every phone in the house.
Childproofing the cupboard under the sink walks through all five in one afternoon.
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Antifreeze, screenwash and brake fluid in a family garage
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Garage & Garden
Storing weedkiller, slug pellets and fertilizer in a shed or garage
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All cupboards