Chemotherapy waste includes potents drugs, as well as infectious liquids, such as human blood. Because of this fact, chemotherapy waste is considered to be a hazardous medical waste product and needs to be treated according to the state and federal bio-hazardous medical waste management Boca Raton regulations and guidelines.
The proper way to handle chemo waste is to make sure that the toxins that it produces do not infect the medical waste management personnel responsible for handling it. Also, chemotherapy waste should be prevented from contaminating the area where it is generated.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued the following set of instructions about chemotherapy waste management
1. Take a look at the patient chart or the vials to see what type of chemotherapy drug the waste has been exposed to. The CDC issues a list of hazardous drugs in its Resource section, so compare the name of the drug you found on the chart or vial to see if the chemotherapy drug used is listed. If it is not, then treat it as infectious waste. Which requires a completely different type of medical waste management.
2. All soft items should be segregated into designated medical waste disposal bags and sealed. These include: tubing, gowns, empty vials, surgical gloves and anything else that isn’t a sharps waste (needles, scalpels, etc)
3. All chemotherapy waste that have sharp edges (sharps) need to go into a hard plastic sharps container. Once you fill the container, secure the lid firmly.
4. The CDC Resource section provides contact information with a number of authorized medical waste management plants with incinerators. Contact one of them close to you and arrange the use of their incinerator.
5. Drive the previously packaged chemotherapy waste to the chosen bio-hazardous medical waste management plant in an approved medical waste transportation vehicle. If your health care facility doesn’t poses such vehicles, call the plant or email them to arrange for them to pick up the chemotherapy waste from your facility and transport it to theirs. You may have to pay a little extra for the pick up service, but don’t worry about it.
Finally, remember that bio-hazardous waste management Boca Raton is something that is very different from one state to another.
