Clinical waste, which is commonly referred to as, surprise, surprise, bio-hazardous waste, needs to be carefully handled and disposed of using proper bio-medical waste disposal measures. There is very little, if at all, room for mistake here, as one small err here can easily cost someone his or her health and even life and also transmit a hazardous disease to the public.
Health care facilities, such as hospitals, clinics, nursery homes, medical labs, bio-medical research facilities, dentist offices, doctor’s practices and so on, are all smaller or greater contributors of medical waste and have to join the fray (if they haven’t done so already) in battling this danger by means of a proper medical waste management Boyton Beach.
Medical or clinical wastes include such items as body parts, organs, body fluids, sharps (needles, syringes, scalpels…), laboratory waste and more items coming from health care facilities contaminated with infectious materials.
• So, how does bio-medical waste disposal work? Here are some basic instructions on that:
All used needles and other discarded sharps should be placed in a hard plastic container (sharps container) immediate after their use. A hospital or other medical facility should have these puncture-resistant, leak-proof containers ready for use at any moment and in every patient and exam room. These also need to have a lid that allows them to be closed securely. Do not put your hands or fingers inside the container and once you have it filled with sharps, take the sharps container to the autoclave in your facility or bring it to the bio-medical waste disposal company.
All body liquids should be poured into special containers, labeled as “biohazardous”. These containers are made of hard plastic, which does not break easily and are most commonly in some bright color, such as red or orange. This is for easier identification by medical waste management handlers.
Place any solid medical waste, such as body parts, organs and tissue, inside a previously autoclaved plastic bio-medical waste disposal bag. These bags are colored red, although they can also be orange and should be also labeled with the words “biohazard” or “biohazardous waste” and the sign for biohazard. Once the waste is in the bag, seal it and it is ready to be picked up by the bio-medical waste disposal company.
Remember that you don’t have to destroy or dispose of all of the currently infected items in the health care facility. For example, medical instruments, such as needles and scalpels can be gathered in a sharps disposal container, and sent to the autoclave, where they will be put under high temperature steam (about 250 Fahrenheit) for half an hour (or less, depending on the quantity of the waste), in order to disinfect the instruments and destroy the pathogens. Once all of this is done, the previously contaminated medical instruments can be reused again.
Do not dispose of human and animal waste together.
