Sharps bin disposal?

[DorotheaDiamond]

Has anyone managed to find a way to dispose of a full sharps bin? Chemists in my borough won’t touch it, the council website gets me to fill in a form for a collection but I never get any call to arrange it! Council website says otherwise it’s the prescribers responsibility but none of the online pharmacies I’ve used will do it!!!

im going to give up
and just put it in a rubbish bin at this point!

Do you really know? Tattoos are now the number one risk factor for hepatitis b and most particularly hepatitis c You can be an asymptomatic carrier ie not know you have it. https://britishlivertrust.org.uk/updated-analysis-from-ukhsa-suggests-hepatitis-b-prevalence-30-higher-than-previously-estimated/

unless you are tested you really will not know. But there are also a whole load of other nasties that can be transmitted by blood.

The point is there is legislation brought in to protect the people who work with waste. It specifically mentions sharps eg needles, syringes, glass ampules etc and how they are to be disposed of ie in a sharps box by a licensed disposal system .

If you have ever seen rubbish being disposed of you will have seen bins blowing over , rubbish run over by cars , people afterwards and that’s even before it gets processed.

The law is there to protect a group of people that have very little protection and work in a very hazardous industry, do your bit to make their lives that little bit less unpleasant and hazardous.

@Lollygaggle I'm not arguing against anything that you're saying, not in the slightest. My whole point was to emphasis to people that they need to just hold onto the sharps boxes until they can find a way to dispose of them correctly. To counter the idea that because they personally know or think they know that they don't have any diseases, that it's then ok to put it in general waste. The person who gets injured won't know that and will still have to go through the stress of it all.

I said "the least we can do is keep the sharps box safely at home whilst we find a disposal method. Even if it takes a long time."

@SilenceInside sorry I quoted the wrong person , it was the poster who opined that they had no communicable diseases, which is missing the point that you made. Apologies .

What's the problem it it's in a sealed bin, don't most areas incinerate household waste?

Why is it? That’s what many councils advise themselves. My bin men never “handle” my rubbish - they stick my wheelie bin on the lorry and it gets automatically tipped into the truck and then incinerated. If it’s inside a sealed rigid container it would only pose a risk if someone dug through it and opened the contained and then took off the needle cap. People seem to have lost all common sense. Plus I know for a fact that I don’t have HIV or hepatitis so there’s that as well.

I know I don't have HIV (at the time of my most recent test, anyway, and I'm unlikely to have picked it up since.)

What I don't know is whether I have a communicable blood-borne disease that there's not yet a test for, or isn't routinely tested for. None of us know that. In almost all cases, it won't be the case, but it's just the one exception that is the problem- just as we rarely have to make an insurance claim, or no one tries our locked door or hack our PC - we don't take measures against things for when they don't happen but for the exceptional cases when they do.

They arrange a contract with someone who does.

FWIW calling the company who do it in my council rather than using their web form worked!!!

@DorotheaDiamond ah. brilliant, glad you've found a solution.

Mine are collected by the council and they leave me a new box, but the nurse at the hospital had to sign a form to start the process. Now I just email them when I need an exchange. Online pharmacies really need to sort this out. If they are supplying sharps they need to organise a collection service. Sharps bins in hospitals, surgeries, vets and clinics have to be sealed and signed then picked up by specialist services that they pay for. If it was ok to put them in an ordinary container and chuck them in the general waste they would all just do that because it would save them money.

I have the same problem where I live, I cannot for the life of me find anywhere to take it. Getting rapidly full. Am sorely tempted to dig a big hole and just bury the damn thing a couple of feet under my garden beds… what else can you do? I can hold onto it forever, but eventually I’ll move house/leave the country/retire to Spain/whatever and still be stuck with sharps bins to dispose of!

When you break a cup or glass how do you dispose of it? Because bin men could cut themselves on that too and get some infection.
If actual councils are advising people to put them in a rigid container and place them in the bin why is that not good enough for people?

It was in the news in the last week about how different councils manage recycling (mine was quite low down the list) - it seems logical there would be as much variation in disposal of non-recycling waste, so how different councils do it might change how much risk is involved. Plus I suspect some councils juat care more than others.

It used to be thought of as a massive no-no to put used needles in household rubbish. Perhaps that's changed, but I doubt it. As other posters have suggested, Google local needle exchange services. They will take them off your hands and even give you new ones. Some chemists used to provide this service, they would have a sign with red and green arrows.

I wonder how people would feel about recreational drug users tossing their used needles in the trash?

How strange. My council picks then up free of charge. I book it online via my council and leave on doorstep the date of collection

https://www.gov.uk/request-clinical-waste-collection

You have to do it via council website. The pharmacists, surgeries and hospitals won't dispose of it as it comes out of their budget and it's expensive.

For people who are in Scotland your community pharmacy will accept your medicinal waste. A pharmacy who provides a needle exchange service can provide you with a sharps bin.

Yes some do so you are lucky. As others, including me, have found, this varies and is only available where local GPs provide a signed letter to the council to say they have prescribed the medication. My council won't collect and could offer no suggestions for disposal. I think I'm going to have to get on a train to London to a needle exchange (none in my area).

I put all mine in a normal bin with the lid on so no needle exposed. Plus there’s no blood transfer

Bin collectors don’t touch the rubbish. They don’t go anywhere near it. They wheel the bin to the lorry and it’s automatically emptied. It’s then driven to a site and again, automatically emptied and burnt. And they’re wearing huge gloves. People are being ridiculous

For my area, this tells me what I already knew - no help to be had!

I have the same problem. Pharmacies will not take them, gp service won't either.

Council says they will arrange collection after your prescriber has completed their referral form. Without the formnbeing completed by the prescriber, they won't allow collection.

I can't get my online pharmacy to complete this specific form so the council won't collect it.

My box isn't even half way full yet but I will probably have to dispose of it in my household waste bin (which does go straight to the incinerator & the bin men will only touch the outside of my wheelie bin as it gets lifted and emptied by the lorry).

This really needs to be made easier for me to have it disposed of correctly as right now I have no other option.

I wonder how people would feel about recreational drug users tossing their used needles in the trash?

Lol you think heroin users have a sharps bin and get the council to collect it?

This could be for anything

they don’t know it’s mj. They collected happily when I had hepharin jabs for blood clots