Disposal of Sharps Containers: How You Should do it?

Disposal of sharps containers carries with it a number of things that you need to consider and be watchful about. These containers are used for storing a variety of sharp objects used in health care, such as needles, scalpel blades, lancets, syringes and even broken glass. All of these items may contain blood which can be infected by one pathogen or another and can transfer to another person.

The disposal of sharps containers can often be a dangerous task and it shouldn’t be done by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing and are not very careful. Since the person handling used needles and other sharps is in danger of getting his or her skin pierced or cut, they first need to make sure that they don’t attempt to collect them with their bare hands before putting them into a sharps container.

When disposing of used sharps, one always has to use appropriate personal protective equipment, consisting of rubber gloves, a mask, goggles, lab coat, and boots. Gloves are particularly important here in protecting the handler’s skin from sharps and infected blood on them, but all the other PPE also have their own purpose here, so it is important to check each item carefully before handling sharps.

All sharps need to go into a special container made of some hard material (some type of hard plastic works very well here). The sharps container also needs to be resistant to outside damage and pressure (so that it doesn’t break or bend easily), it should be leak-proof (in order to prevent any infected blood to seep out) and it should have a lid on top that allows sharps to be easily and placed inside.

Disposal of Sharps Containers at Your Home

Health care facilities usually have a contract with professional medical waste removal companies when they need disposal of sharps containers. However, what about individual households? How can they ensure the safe removal of used sharps and full sharps containers from their home?

If you have diabetes or another such condition and use needles to self-medicate, you can ask your local council for help in disposing of sharps containers. Usually, the council will provide this service free of charge for you, but some might require a small fee for you to pay, so make sure to first check the council’s website address or inquire about potential fees via phone or in their office.

Never use used bottles or cans to put used sharps in and don’t use your regular household trash bin either. Also, don’t throw away the sharps and sharps containers with other waste from your house, such as food or old paper.

Do you need a sharps container removed? We at Medical Waste Management (MWM) can guarantee safe disposal of sharps containers to our clients in Florida for the best price available. Contact us at https://medicalwastefl.com/contact-us/ today or call us at 305-677-2343 to get a FREE QUOTE.