The average household generates 100 pounds of chemical waste every year and a collection centers to help families dispose of it properly are popping up all over the country.

Everything that comes in to the Dallas County Chemical Collection Center near Dallas, Texas, is sorted depending on its potential hazard; for instance, there are fertilizers and pesticides, flammables, paint, old batteries and aerosols.

The chemicals are recycled, neutralized, used as fuel, or incinerated. It is one of several household chemical collection sites in north Texas.

Items like old paint, used oil, and even ordinary cleaning products can have a devastating impact on the environment, said Sandy Cook of the Dallas County Chemical Collection Center.

"It poisons the wildlife," Cook said. "It poisons the soil so that plant life can't grow."

With so many people in north Texas, every carload of chemical waste makes a difference.

"If you multiply that by the number of homes in Dallas County," Cook said. "You get a lot of chemicals being dumped."

Sara Bould and her 9-year-old son brought a load of household chemicals to the collection site to do their part to make a difference.

"Because the guilt, the guilt of what it would do to the environment," Bould said.

Collecting the chemical waste is not just about saving Mother Nature.

Cook said there is a more sobering way to think about it.

"Eventually, either we or our children will eat and drink it," she said.