sharps disposal

Waste handlers and ancillary staff engaged in hygiene and waste management in and from healthcare premises perform an invaluable and essential task. The rewards are not great, yet the risks might […]

Safety sharps prevent sharps injuries. The evidence is clear, though whether this protection is due solely to better physical protection of staff or some additional subconscious increase in awareness and inherently […]

It seems that clinical wastes turn up in all sorts of places. Sharps are a particular problem when they arise, but tissue wastes are perhaps less common, except perhaps after […]

Producer pays waste charges?

The producer pays principle is well known and well-established. However, when and how do payments arise? Householders pay for waste disposal though their community charge payments, now with addition levies […]

An Australian lady faces a long and agonising wait for an all-clear after a needlestick injury from a hypodermic needle left in the mailbox outside her home in Hampton, Victoria. “[She] was […]

What’s new in sharps development? Obviously, the development and introduction of a vast array of safety engineered safety needles and blades is a huge advance, though perhaps the real advance […]

Having studiously ignored sharps injury for years, resisting all attempts to make sharps injury a mandatory reporting event under RIDDOR and so prompt investigation of ‘hot spots’ of poor sharps […]

Health Technical Memorandum 07-01: Safe management of healthcare waste has been updated (March 2013) and is now available on the Gov.UK website. Interesting perhaps that this ever more bloated document if […]

Blenkharn Environmental have previously published the detail results of nationwide audits of clinical waste (including sharps) collections for domiciliary producers and of discarded drug litter by and on behalf of […]

Addiction to steroid drugs in Ireland is increasing, though those who take them don’t identify themselves as drug users. http://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/steroid-drug-use-on-the-increase-in-ireland-study-of-drug-users-in-dublin-has-found-1.1409012 Profiling more than 300 drug users who used services at […]

Nobody wants to fund collections of clinical waste from the community. Though some companies make a business out of ‘smalls’ it operates generally on small margins and yet is costly […]

Protecting staff from sharps injury

The implementation of UK legislation to enable compliance with Council Directive 2010/32/EU is now in place and so many organisations are working hard to prepare guidance notes for healthcare providers. […]

There has been an increasing tendency in recent years to downplay the risks of acquiring bloodborne virus infection. Statistics are quoted, showing that in general the risks of acquiring a bloodborne […]

It is widely understood that laboratory wastes will be, or should be, autoclaved locally before removal for disposal. It stems from a statement by Chris Collins that “nothing should leave the laboratory unless […]