How do you classify one of the most Florida hazardous medical waste disposal items, sharps? These are needles, syringes, scalpels and other medical tools used in treatment, diagnoses and other medical procedures that have the ability to cut through or puncture human or animal skin. Physical injury aside (it’s very easy to get stuck on a needle or cut on a razor blade), sharps are much more dangerous for another reason. After being used on a sick patient, sharps become contaminated with his or her blood.
We never know if some previous patient doesn’t have HIV, or Hepatitis C, so to avoid getting infected and contracted with some life-threatening blood-borne diseases, sharps should be promptly discarded in a specially designed hard plastic, leak-proof and puncture-resistant receptacle, with a tight-fitting lid, called a sharps container.
Where are sharps containers used? Obviously in the health care industry, for one. Hospitals and clinics generate hundreds of tons of sharps waste every day throughout the United States, but they are not the only source of it. Albeit, they are certainly the most responsible for its Florida medical waste disposal. Individuals also use needles and syringes, most likely for diabetes or some similar disease. Also, tattoo parlors are another place where needles are used on people and where sharps containers are needed.
What to Look For When Buying a Sharps Container?
When buying a sharps container, the first thing you should think about is the quantity of sharps waste you produce. There are different sizes of sharps containers, from very small, that can hold only a couple needles and can fit into your back pocket (don’t sit on them, though), to very large bins of 10 or more gallons, in which you can put hundreds or thousands of needles and other sharps.
Next, you should also look at the design of a sharps container, especially what needle sizes can it accommodate. Take your biggest needle and if it fits the opening just fine and doesn’t stick outside (which is very dangerous, mind you), everything else will fit as well.
The design of a sharps container may also differ, depending on the type of sharps you will be putting inside it. So be sure that you can put not only needles, but also any other sharps waste, such as scalpels, razor blades, or broken glass in it.
Sharps containers need to be not only well designed, but sturdy and durable. When purchasing one, don’t neglect to check it to determine if it is durable enough and that it doesn’t leak anywhere. Try to punch a hole through it with a small sewing needle.
Where to Look for a Sharps Container?
Try local pharmacies or drugstores first. These often have smaller commercial sharps containers for sale. That’s certainly a better option than buying one online for a number of reasons. First of all, you won’t have to pay for the shipping costs. Second, buying stuff online often constitutes a certain quality risk and with sharps containers you don’t have as much luxury than when it comes to shoes, for instance. You don’t want to buy something that has already been used and damaged.
Tattoo supply stores also have sharps containers for sale. However, they might be somewhat more expensive than what you find a the local pharmacy, without the benefit of a better quality. Plus, they don’t (unlike pharmacies) offer a medical waste disposal service for sharps containers (but can refer you to someone that does.
Finally, you can contact a Florida medical waste disposal company and sign either a mail-back, or a pick-up contract with them. In the first case, they supply you with the sharps container, which you later (after you fill it) have to send back to them (they give you an address, of course). Pick-up service is the most expensive medical waste disposal route for sharps containers, but the advantage is that someone from the company will come over to you and take the container, in addition to supply it.
