Hoe much do vets charge for sharps bin disposal

[hoobooboo]

My cat has diabetes. I have to inject him with insulin. The vet provided a special protective "sharps bin" to keep used syringes secure. I have just been to the vet to dispose of this waste. They want to charge £21(!!!!) for this. This charge was NOT mentioned to me beforehand. I find this price a total goddamn ripp-off. So I just would like to know if I am overreacting. What are other vets charging for this service? My vet charges an arm and a leg for his diabetes treatment as it is so I would have thought a free service to dispose of the waste would be the least they could do to ease the financial strain.

I am aware that this waste is not allowed to be disposed of with normal domestic waste but they do not make it easy to rid of otherwise. I have checked on my local council website and they offer no such service, I am in West Oxfordshire. Any advise on how others manage this appreciated. During these times I am annoyed that my vet is seemingly ripping me off. I would like to find a safe, preferably free method of disposal.
Thank you for your advice.

My vet charged me for the sharps box and the disposal in the same fee. But when it came to it, they wouldn’t take it. So I had to take it to another vet to get it disposed of.

Thanks @DobbyTheHouseElk , did the second vet charge you? If yes, can you recall what the fee was? I am seriously thinking of moving vets because of this. I know in the greater scheme of things it might sounds like an overreaction to move vets because of £21 but I feel like I am totally being ripped off. It's an obscene amount to charge for a collection of medical waste.

Zero. And I buy the bins on Amazon

But your vet will be charged by the clinical waste service per bin.
Of course they can't do it for free.

Ask in pharmacy, I used to take mine to one (diabetic needles but used for rabbits)

You can but sharps bins on Amazon and ask a pharmacy to take it

Our dog was diabetic, we bought a bd needle clipper from amazon, it clips the sharp bit off and takes hundreds till full. Then disposed of the syringe in plastic waste.

Not pet related but I work in a school where we look after children that use needles. It's hard to get rid of the waste. Even the parents struggle.....there is no free service as far as I know.

Sharps bins are used for all sorts. Plenty of free disposal options if you have your own bin

My husband is a type 2 diabetic. He gets rid of his sharps at a special bin at the local council. Vets are a blinking rip off.

Ours isn't that much, I think £15 including the disposal. But as others vee said, you can get a bin from amazon and drop it into any chemist. I make dh do it in case they ask me any awkward questions 😂

I recently worked out keeping our diabetic cat costs us about £85 a month, when things are on the straight and narrow. Which they currently aren't.

We just paid £2300 for vet treatment for what's turned out to be kidney infection / uti... 😭

My gp takes medical waste. They have a container on their desk. You don't have to declare anything, you just drop it in.

Our council supplies and collects. FOC sharps boxes. Don't ask what it's for...

Where/ how do you dispose of your sharps bin?

Our cat is also diabetic, the vet said they charged what they are charged to dispose of the sharps bin, but I don’t know if there is a private service that disposes of them for normal people.

It will almost definitely be what they are charged for the bin plus disposal.

I’m in London. They charge me a fortune for tests so they probably recoup the fees they might pay for them that way. However I really wouldn’t be happy to pay for the service.

Not every pharmacy takes sharps bins - I needed to dispose of one post surgery and though they’d very happily give me an empty one for free, three separate pharmacies refused to take back full ones. The GP surgery very reluctantly took it (even then only with accompanying paper form filled in!) when I threatened to call the council, the hospital, PALs and everyone else I could think of. And they wonder why people put things in domestic waste they shouldn’t do…

I had similar after being prescribed blood thinners post surgery. The GP pretty much refused to take it’s only that I was so insistent that they took it in.

Thanks to this thread I’ve discovered our council does collect sharps bins from the house but only if referred to them via an nhs address! I guess that rules diabetic cats out.

Pharmacies are only commissioned to take sharps as part of providing a needle exchange service to drug users. So you'd have to say they're from drug use.

Trouble was at the time the council instructed you to give sharps to your GP, council wouldn’t collect or accept them either. Was one big merry go round. The GP suggested I drive twenty five miles back to the hospital and give it to them!

It appears they’ve done something about this in the last couple of years though, the council website now lists four pharmacies across the city that will accept them.

my diabetes doctor told me to put my sharps in a fabric conditioner bottle, tape the lid on when full and throw it in a normal bin

I agree that not a pharmacies do. I tried to drop a sharps bin at the Boots pharmacy connected to my GP surgery. I was picking up my prescription which included self administered injections so obvious that it was from my use but they said they don’t take them.

I can't remember what we paid for sharps bins from the vet (our previous cat was diabetic). One of the nurses told me about one client they'd had who cut the needles off the syringes so the bin lasted longer!
I had sharps bins from the local pharmacy from blood thinners in the last year and they only charged something like £2 or £3. The pharmacist did say I could ask my GP to add it on my prescription which I never did.

I had to dispose of one a few weeks ago. The hospital told me I could take it to any pharmacy or GP. Tried pharmacies but they refused to take it. GP surgery accepted it without any issues.