My wife is going to need to take some home injections for a vitamin deficiency. Neither of us has any experience in home-use syringes, but she is getting instructions. I asked her what we were going to do with the used needles, and she doesn’t know. I think she asked the pharmacist, and is going to get a sharps container, but I don’t know how we’re supposed to get rid of that when it’s full.
Suprisingly, I was not able to come up with any useful info on the web. I could only find sites that talked about institutional medical waste disposal, and needle exchange programs for illegal drugs.
I checked my city’s waste-disposal rules (trash, garbage, hazardous household waste) and it appears that medical waste is not allowed.
I know there are a lot of people who use injected drugs at home and while traveling for diabetes, and probably other problems, so this ought to be an easy question. How do you safely and legally dispose of your needles?
The last time I had a sharps bin in the house, it came with a post-paid return label.
If yours didn’t come with such a lable, most hospitals or pharmacies will take sharps containers off your hands either for free, or for a nominal fee. Call around and go to whoever’s cheapest.
Ask your wife’s doctor (or whomever is prescribing the injectables). When I had a sharps container, my doctor took the container off my hands and disposed of it for me.
I don’t know how people handle it when traveling, though. My grandmother has diabetes and sometimes has to inject herself away from home. I think she just takes the used needle home and drops it in the container there. Don’t know what she does when it’s full.
Your local health department may accept them [ours does], as well as your hospital. Best bet is to call and ask. If she’s going to be on the injections long-term, and depending on the size of needle she’ll be using, you may want to invest in a needle destruction device, which runs around $50 or so.
On a related note, I have a knife I need to throw away. How would I go about doing that? It’s been sitting behind my faucet for a motnh because I don’t want to just toss it in the garbage.
I’m a bad diabetic. I just throw mine in the trash.
If somebody’s going to go digging through my trash, find a used syringe and stick himself with it, whether or not he catches the willies from me is probably the least of his problems.
If the syringes are similar to insulin syringes, you can usually put the orange cap back on the needle and break the end off, leaving the needle stuck in the cap and a syringe without a needle. Then you just throw it in the garbage.
Here in Alabama, the standard is to place the used syringes in thick, opaque plastic bottles, such as a Downy Fabric Softener bottle. Then just screw the cap on the bottle and place in your garbage.
You can call the Alabama Department of Environmental Management at 1-800-533-2336 and speak to a Solid Waste Inspector for more information.
Well, what about the poor sanitation worker who gets stuck by your needle loading the bag of trash into the truck?
As to my knife, no, it’s not useable. A large chunk of the handle broke off. I hadn’t thought about an old laundry detergent jug, that seems like it could work.
Several years ago we had to give subcutaneous (I think that’s the term – under the skin?) injections to one of our cats. The vet said to put the used needles in an empty large plastic soda bottle or the like, and return them.
Yeah, like the sanitation worker’s work day isn’t unpleasant enough.
I’ve spent a lot of time at the Kaiser pharmacy here, and people drop off full sharps bins all the time. I’m sure any hospital or clinic worth the dirt it’s on would gladly take sharps off your hands, to prevent the risk of sticks.
A side note. When injecting someone elsenever put the cap back on the needle. This is the most frequent cause of needle sticks to medical personnel. Drop it directly into the container immediately after use.
Of course, you can’t catch something from yourself.