How do you dispose of your sharps, used test strips, lancets, etc..?

When we lived in Midlothian the local medical practice would not only provide sharps bins but also take them back on for proper disposal once full.

Since moving to East Fife (Glenrothes and west of it seem to more civilised) I’ve found that both medical practices and hospitals refuse to do either; their advice is to use an old margarine container, tape up once full – and place in the bin for landfill waste. The one chemist in the nearest town that will take sharps bins in ushers me into the wee room they reserve for junkies getting their methadone fix – something I find distasteful. I can get my GP to prescribe sharps bins but only under duress; they refuse to put it on my prescription list and each time I have to remind them of a conversation I had with NHS Fife who told me I should be able to get them prescribed.

STW Has a good geographical spread and I know that there’s several fellow Type 1’s and I’m sure other medical conditions that create medical waste for sharps bins – I’d be interested to hear what kind of methods are available to you.

No idea about Scotland but here in Cheshire I have a sharps bin on my repeat prescription and once full the chemist takes it back to be destroyed.

I may have it wrong but I thought it was a legal requirement for this type of biological waste to be destroyed by incineration.

I may have it wrong but I thought it was a legal requirement for this type of biological waste to be destroyed by incineration.

Good point.

http://www.eurekadirect.co.uk/category.php?Catid=24990&pl=PPC&gclid=CNCLor-9lsICFSbHtAod9HoAmQ

You’ve missed the crux (or what I hoped was the crux) of my post, project!

I have bought sharps containers, normally eBay, but the main issue is getting them disposed of properly – as The Pinkster has suggested it might even be a legal requirement.

Not that it helps you, but ours go back to the GP.

I wonder why they won’t take them?

Wakefield council come out and swap me sharps bins, full for empty, when I call them.
It’s normally a humongous one they leave. I keep it in the garage, have a smaller plastic container, in the kitchen. I empty that into the humongous one when it’s brimming.
Test strips go in the rubbish bin, don’t they? 😳

If patients treat themselves in their own home, any waste produced as a result is considered to be their own. Only where a particular risk has been identified (based on medical diagnosis) does such waste need to be treated as hazardous clinical waste. Local authorities have a duty to collect household waste including healthcare waste from domestic properties. Under the controlled waste regulations, the authority may charge for the collection of specific waste streams, including clinical waste.

Where hypodermic needles are produced in the home, on no account should soft drink cans, plastic bottles or similar containers be used for the disposal of needles, since these could present serious hazards to staff if they were disposed of in domestic waste. Sharps bins can be obtained on prescription (FP10 prescription form) and can be returned to your doctor for disposal when full. The duty on local authorities to collect and dispose of clinical waste generated by households also applies to sharps waste and again the local authority may make a charge to cover the cost of collection.

Project – do you have a link to the source of that, please?

^^^ https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-waste ^^^^

That’s from DEFRA so there may well be other rules in Scotland.

My missus reckons your GPs surgery should be taking and disposing them (based on her professional involvement in community care)

https://www.gov.uk/healthcare-waste#healthcare-waste-produced-in-a-private-household

as above,also contact the practice manager and advise her of the above, sometimes its just an awkward receptionist who doesnt want to handle sharps boxes who says no we dont take returns.just ensure the top is taped down and around ro prevent spills of sharps, not nice if the top comes off in a surgery.

and as an aside our local recycling centre , uses magnets to remove steel cans from the co mingled waste supply chain, and they have big problems with sharps being put into palstic bottles or just left loose in the waste and picked up by the magnets.

You can get them on prescription then they provide the means of disposal.

The one chemist in the nearest town that will take sharps bins in ushers me into the wee room they reserve for junkies getting their methadone fix – something I find distasteful.

Hang on. So you have a perfect solution to hand, you’re just too precious to use it?

Anyway. If your GP is prepared to prescribe bins “under duress”, ask them to put it on a repeat prescription and synced with your other meds and syringes etc. Then your repeat is a quick phone call, “same again, thanks.”

or phone nhs direct and ask for the address of your nearest needle exchange scheme office

West Lothian (and Falkirk 5+ yrs ago) provide and receive sharps bins. Some staff seem more helpful that others. Ask your clinic to help if they are being idiots.

That consultation room in the pharmacy is not reserved for junkies – its used for anyone where they want to offer a degree of privacy. Perhaps your stereotyping of people who use the room is as much the problem as anything and more people using it for a range of conditions would actually help change the perception of that room in the wider public’s eye.

Hang on. So you have a perfect solution to hand, you’re just too precious to use it?

Excuse me but, please, give me one valid reason as to why the hell I should be made to feel like something you’d be unhappy to stand in and find smeared over the sole of your shoe?

or phone nhs direct and ask for the address of your nearest needle exchange scheme office

I think that’s the pharmacy I’ve described!

Essex here

The council used to provide a sharps bin, collect it once a month and drop a new one off.

Now they collect once a month, but have to get the sharps bin via a GP prescription

might be worth phoning your council to see if they do anything similar

Would a BD Safe Clip help to reduce the problem? Not supposed to use it for lancets, though.

Accu-chek multiclix lancets are held in a little drum, which can be binned when used.

Test strips – bin surely?

Funny, I’ve had completely contradictory advice from my own practice- when I stopped using syringes, they told me pen needles didn’t need such special handling and could just be stuck in a suitable receptacle, a coke can or similiar, then binned. But then a while later they gave me a sharps bin. Which seems like a pro item as it’s massive, it’ll take me years to fill it

I used to use a safeclip when I was using disposable syringes, it was a total pain in the arse.

Blood testing strips I just bin, on the basis that ebola shared is ebola halved.

I’m with cougar. You need a wee set of stepladders. Nobody will think any less of you or even notice or care. I bet if you spoke to pharmacist they’d even arrange a wee discreet system for you, most singletrack problems could be solved by talking to the people involved rather than us.

I have fortnightly injections with drug delivery (refrigerated) every 8 weeks. They provide the sharps bins and take them back when full. They ask before every delivery if I need a new one. Cheshire based though drugs delivered by private firm from afar – guess its all outsourced and each bin gets charged for so they are pretty keen to issue new ones.

Poly has the answer.

That consultation room in the pharmacy is not reserved for junkies – its used for anyone where they want to offer a degree of privacy

I work in a hospital. Sharps bins-a-plenty for my used cannulas.

Test strips go in a bin.

That consultation room in the pharmacy is not reserved for junkies – its used for anyone where they want to offer a degree of privacy. Perhaps your stereotyping of people who use the room is as much the problem as anything and more people using it for a range of conditions would actually help change the perception of that room in the wider public’s eye.

Perhaps I am stereotyping and being a bit ‘touchy’ about it, but certainly no more so than the staff at the chemist that seem to be intent on on shepherding me into it each and every time I go in with a full and sealed sharps bin – wouldn’t you agree?

I do wonder if H&S policy dictates that they are not to actually handle the sharps bins themselves.

Perhaps I’ll just ask them next time and point out that the sharps bin is sealed and that I do not require the use of the consultation room.

Perhaps I am stereotyping and being a bit ‘touchy’ about it, but certainly no more so than the staff at the chemist that seem to be intent on on shepherding me into it each and every time I go in with a full and sealed sharps bin – wouldn’t you agree?

Nope. Maybe they do it for discretion in case there’s a judgemental person in the shop thinks the customer is a junky for having a sharps box.

So you are in a private room with a pharmacist’s personal attention and you decide the best way to address your concerns is ignore the pharmacist and ask the internet…

Now I know that living with a chronic condition is a PITA, and I know that you wouldn’t want to be wrongly stigmatised as being a “junkie”, but how often do you change bins? if this is the biggest hassle in your overall care you are probably doing quite well.

There’s no way the staff or the general public know what you’re bringing in, in a yellow sharps box. Whether you’re an IV drug user, Hep C +ve or anything.

You could request a smaller, less conspicuous sharps bin if it’s a major concern?

Some fair points made I’ll admit. Guess other people may indeed wonder what exactly I’m bringing in and it is for discretion.

Cheers, y’all.

In Sheffield, Ms TPT uses a plastic jar, such as for Sainsbury’s low fat hot chocolate, and when it is full it goes in the bin. All waste gets burnt in the city.
She’s been injecting for some 20+ years and uses needles and bayonets more than once so we probably fill one over four months.

Guess other people may indeed wonder what exactly I’m bringing in and it is for discretion.

stop being a nana, no one else gives a flying …. 😆

You could request a smaller, less conspicuous sharps bin if it’s a major concern?

Or put the sharps box in a bag.

In Sheffield, Ms TPT uses a plastic jar, such as for Sainsbury’s low fat hot chocolate, and when it is full it goes in the bin. All waste gets burnt in the city.

😯

Had type 1 for 23 years, never had a sharps bin since changing from syringes to pen needles about 20? years ago. Nobody’s ever mentioned anything to me about it. Meh.

In Sheffield, Ms TPT uses a plastic jar, such as for Sainsbury’s low fat hot chocolate, and when it is full it goes in the bin. All waste gets burnt in the city.

Yeah not the best practice. Bin gets knocked over, child sees CHOCOLATE in a tin… Or dog sniffs tin, chews it, sharps everywhere? Massive hazard I reckon.

FWIW, most of these are capped so in the case of a spill there won’t normally be an immediate stick risk. Assuming you put the caps on anyway

*eeek*

Sorry, as a nurse we never recap sharps. Very high risk of needle-stick injury. Makes me shudder just thinking about it. Not so bad when you’re recapping your own sharps but still, just the thought of sticking myself, having to go to ED etc…. *shudders*

With the wee insulin pen needles there’s not much risk of that to be fair but yeah, I don’t think I’d want to be doing it with anyone else’s. My risk of sticking myself is definitely lower while recapping them than it would be dealing with them uncapped though!

(my blood testing lancets are designed for it- the cap breaks off in first use then pops back on)