So I’ll be the first to admit I’ve not always been the most disciplined about proper disposal of sharps. Historically, at home, I’ve just put the safety cap back on pen needles and thrown them in the garbage. At work, I have tossed them into paper cups, or plastic bottles and then folded the tops of the cups over and stapled them closed then brought them home in my suitcase and tossed them. More recently, I’ve taken to being more disciplined about putting them in plastic water bottles and giving them to my wife to take to work and dispose of with the medical waste—
What do you guys do and why? Interested to hear your thoughts?
We have a needle clipper so all the sharps get de-fanged, so to speak. But we also have a biohazard box that we turn into Walgreens every six months for stuff like infusion sites, which are still a hazard even with the needle clipped.
I toss needles and strips in an empty gallon vinegar jug. When full, I tape it shut with some duck tape. I call city services and they come and pick it up. It states on our recycling containers that we are to dispose of any medical sharps or waste by calling for pick-up.
I guess I must be the only one who still uses the “official” process:-)
We have a sharps disposal box, where the top makes it very difficult to retrieve already disposed of contents. One reason I am glad to use it is that we have many 12-year-olds at our house, whose first concern rarely is common sense or personal safety.
When it fills we take it to an official disposal center. Where we live, you can take it to a drugstore and pay a few dollars to get rid of it, or drive it to a free disposal center in the county about 30 minutes from home.
As a note, we use a fastclix so we have no lancets to dispose of, and we snip our needles so we have no needles to dispose of:-) The only thing we need to get rid of is the snipping container: it will probably take us until my son is 18 before we have to get rid of another sharps container.
I have a large sharps container in the laundry room. In the past (as I understand it), you could use any rigid container (laundry detergent, etc.), tape it shut and take it to the fire station for disposal but they discontinued that. Now, I buy a container from a specialty pharmacy in town and take the full container back for disposal. The cost for the large container is ~$12, and disposal is “free.” I keep a small laundry detergent thing at my diabetes “station” for daily use and transfer to the large container as needed. I’m a stickler for properly disposing of needles and lancets. (Lancets? Who changes - let alone disposes of - lancets?! ROFL)
I do realize this is an old thread, but in many locales laws have changed, been updated and possibly been instituted. Have they changed/been implemented where you live? Is there a cost associated with disposal? Can you mail them away, or must you drop them off in person? If you drop them off in person, where do you need to go? To a county facility? A drugstore? A medical facility? A sheriff’s facility?
Where I live, we have a variety of disposal options depending on your personal mobility status. The county trash provider will even supply free sharps containers no questions asked at a local pharmacy chain. The one caveat around here is that they have to be in actual Sharps containers, labelled as such. No milk jugs taped shut, no glass jars taped shut, no exceptions. I guess that’s why they give away free containers. Personally, I’m lazy. 1.5qt containers free or not fill up way too fast. I buy the 8 gallon ones on the Seattle guy’s website for less the $20 and just go every 6 months. Way easier.
Going all the way back on the old thread…in my county the disposal options are limited. They won’t accept sharps at the transfer station (or in the curbside pickup of trash) and the only disposal I have found is bring the full sharps container to a chain drugstore who will accept it if I buy an overpriced new one.
This device works great and only saves the little needle end of the syringe. I strongly recommend it over a standard sharps container. Marked down for Prime days!
I use one of those red sharps containers you can get at most pharmacies. Once it’s full, I drop it off at my local hospital’s disposal box. Keeps things simple and safe.
CVS sent me a sharps container. When I tried to return it full to my local CVS store, I was informed that they can’t take it. Here’s what the state of Texas wants done with sharps.
So I conttinue to use a metal coffee can and seal it with Gorilla tape. And put it in my trash. I have used detergent bottles, but the Dupixent syringes won’t fit. I use pliers to remove the sharp on infusion sets, dropping it in the can. Throwing the insertion device in the trash. No recycling in Texas
It varies by county, town and subdivision in Oregon because trash collection is not a centralised function. Where I live I can buy a sharps container from my trash collector, Southern Oregon Sanitation https://sosanitation.com/) fill it up and drop it off (so long as it still has the sticker on it
Cost is minimal, IRC around $20; I pay more these days each time I drop off trash, though I only have to drive a few miles to the transfer station (it’s 1 3/4 miles away as the crow flies, an excellent walk, 4 miles by road, 3.1 if you follow Google Maps but then you will die, or at least get very stuck.)
I put the Omnipods in there for a while but that worried me because of the Lithium batteries, so I stopped; I have a big stock now waiting for Insulet to expand their recycling program from CA to OR; hey, I’m only 20 miles north of the border! These days with just the needle sharps it’s going to be years before I fill the container (they are pretty reasonable in size).
So far as pliers are concerned I have an enormous stock of Dexcom G6 and G7 applicators just waiting for me to get round to taking them apart and dropped the really small sharp bit into the container. The Abbott inserter is most excellent; a pair of long-nose pliers will pull the sharp bit out; I would show a piccie but I dropped it into the sharps container so I only have the whole mixed-plastic remainder to show.
