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Health care facilities, such as hospitals, produce large amounts of different kinds of waste on a daily basis. The one, however, that deserves the most attention is biohazardous waste. This waste contains biological tissues or fluids and could be dangerous to a person’s health and the environment. This is why medical waste management Plantation is the only way to make sure that we are safe from diseases and pollutions that biohazardous waste can cause.

Biohazardous waste is never disposed of with other types of waste. Instead, one of the most important rules of medical waste removal is to place biohazardous waste in special red bags or containers. These are also labeled with a “biohazard” sign and the person handling them needs to be extremely cautious when doing this.

There are very specific procedures for medical waste removal of biohazards. Read further to find out more about this.

First, you will need a couple of things:

  • Red biohazard waste bags
  • PPE (gloves, goggles, boots)
  • Biohazard waste containers for sharps and such
  • Biohazard pickup container

Okay, so here’s a step-by-step instruction on how to dispose of biohazardous waste:

  1. Put on your PPE. PPE stands for Personal Protective Equipment and includes thick rubber gloves, eye protection goggles, apron, steel-toed boots and a dust mask. Never handle biohazardous waste without PPE.
  2. Line the waste container(s) with the red biohazard waste bag(s)
  3. Seal the red biohazard waste bags to the container
  4. Take out the full red waste bags from the biohazard waste containers and place them in the pickup waste container.
  5. Close the pickup waste container
  6. Fill out any documentation required (such as the Medical Waste Accumulation Log). Put the time, date, place and what kind of medical waste you placed inside the containers
  7. Contact a medical waste removal company to come and pick up the biohazardous waste.

What Goes in the Red Bag?

Okay, as you can see, proper medical waste management for biohazards is really not that difficult. The question, that many of you are probably asking, however, is “what goes in the red bag?”

Red biohazard waste bags are meant to house very specific content and should be disposed in a way I just explained above. By knowing which materials to put in the red bag and which you shouldn’t, you can make your medical waste management significantly better.

Here’s what goes in the red bag:

  • Biomedical waste. Any waste that poses a danger to humans in terms of infection is considered biomedical waste and have to go in the red bag
  • Sharps. Instruments like needles and scalpels can easily cut the epidermis and infect a person. These items should first be placed in the sharps container and only then in the red bag
  • Contaminated laundry. Items such as bed sheets, blankets, pillowcases, gowns or pajamas regularly get in contact with infected blood. This isn’t something that a washing machine can handle and these items go in the red bag as well. The difference between this and other types of Pompano Beach medical waste belonging in the red biohazard bag is that contaminated laundry can be cleaned and disinfected using special chemicals and safely reused.