About Under the Sink

Under the Sink is a reading site about the bottles, tins, sprays and batteries that live in ordinary homes. We explain what the symbols and words on a label mean, where things are safest kept, which products must never meet, how to get rid of what you no longer need, and where to find official help if something goes wrong.

The name is literal. In most kitchens the cupboard under the sink is where the strongest products end up, at exactly the height a crawling child can reach. If a home has one cupboard worth thinking about, it is that one.

What we cover

• Reading labels: hazard pictograms, signal words such as Danger and Warning, precautionary phrases and the small print on cleaning, garden, DIY, car-care and hobby products, on both US and European labels.
• Safe storage: heights, latches, locks, original containers and childproofing, plus homes with pets, guests and grandchildren.
• Products never to mix: bleach with ammonia or acids, one drain cleaner after another, and the other combinations that turn a cleaning job into a gas.
• Disposal: household hazardous waste days, recycling centres, batteries, aerosols and old paint.
• Hazards that are not in a bottle: carbon monoxide alarms, button batteries and laundry capsules.

What we do not do

We are not a poison center, an emergency service, a hospital or a public authority, and we never give advice about an exposure, by message or otherwise. If someone may have swallowed, breathed in or splashed a product, call your local emergency number or a poison center now: in the US, Poison Help on 1-800-222-1222; in the UK, NHS 111, or 999 in an emergency; in the EU, 112. The official help page lists more countries.

We do not write about treatment, symptoms or medicines, and you will not find home remedies or homemade cleaner recipes here.

How we check what we write

Every rule, number and regulation in an article is checked against an official source before it goes up: regulators and public health bodies such as the CDC, EPA, CPSC, FDA, the NHS, the UK Health and Safety Executive and the European Chemicals Agency, and the poison centers' own public pages. Where an article states a rule, it links the page we checked. Laws change, so when we notice that one has, we update the article.

Our writers are householders, not clinicians: parents, gardeners, renters and one person who has spent decades in garages. You can read about each of them on the writers page.

Why giftinfo.org?

"Gift" is the German word for poison. Years ago this address belonged to a public poison-information centre in Austria, which today runs under its own web address. Under the Sink is a separate, English-language reading site that started much later. If you need that centre, its current contact details are on our official help page.

Partner links

Some pages carry a clearly marked box for a product type that genuinely fits the article, such as a carbon monoxide alarm. A few of those boxes link through an affiliate network, and if you buy through one we can earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Partners never see or approve our articles, and a product box is never a safety recommendation for a specific situation: follow the maker's instructions and the label.

Corrections and messages

Spotted something out of date or wrong? Write to labels@giftinfo.org or use the contact form. Corrections are the first thing we read. We cannot answer questions about an exposure: for those, call the numbers above.