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Bio-Hazardous Medical Waste Management Fort Lauderdale – How to Dispose of Sharps in Your Lab?
Every day, health care workers have to deal with all kinds of sharps instruments in laboratories. Their proper disposal is one of the most important parts of hospital’s bio-hazardous medical waste management Fort Lauderdale plan and program.
Sharps have a very hazardous nature. These are medical instruments made for one purpose and that is to lacerate or puncture the human skin with ease. This ability makes them invaluable during surgical or dental procedures, as well as for treating and diagnosing a patient. However, what happens when these instruments are used and are to be disposed of? Do they suddenly seize being pointy or serrated or keen? Of course not. In fact, now they are even more dangerous as they are also infected with blood and possibly a blood-borne virus or other pathogen. For this reason, their proper disposal is of utmost importance.
- What will you need for sharps waste disposal?
- Sharps container
- Tape
- Proper protective equipment like rubber gloves
Before you start disposing of sharps waste, you should familiarize yourself with bio-hazardous medical waste management requirements in your state, especially those pertaining to scalpels, scissors and other sharps.
Next thing you need to do is to bring sharps containers into every area of your health care facility where they may be needed. This includes ER, surgery rooms, dentist rooms and so on. By making sure that sharps containers are readily available as soon as they are needed, you are lowering the risk of someone getting cut on an infected object.
Once full, place sharps containers into clearly labeled biohazard containers. In some US states, you may also need to label these as “not for recycling”. Label the container with the words “infectious waste”.
Don’t overfill the containers. This is one of the key mistakes that is made in bio-hazardous waste management and it could be quite costly. Instead, replace biohazard containers as soon as they are about ¾ full. That way, there is no risk of something dangerous spilling.
Using the tape, shut the container securely before you dispose a sharps container in it. By doing this, you will ensure that the biohazard waste container does not open up by accident and spill its contents,
Well, that is about all you need to know about how to properly dispose of sharps waste. It’s actually not that difficult and it is necessary for proper bio-hazardous medical waste management.
I would, however, like to give you a few additional tips about safely disposing of sharps waste.
- You can purchase a commercial sharps container from a local pharmacy as well as a medical waste management company
- Don’t use glass containers for disposing of sharps as glass can break.
