Safety sharps – just what is required?
Safe in Common has issued a list of “10 Golden Rules” of safety relating to the design, implementation and use of safety sharps. The design and activation of the […]
healthcare waste
Antivirus security – an additional healthcare waste hazard?
Visitors to the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum are welcome to use the information and downloads offered here as they wish, subject to the few rules that we explain here. Visitors […]
Patient confidentiality & recycling
The NHS is going green, slightly, in small, slow steps, but it IS going green. Many items are reused when it is safe to do so, with expensive disposables side lined […]
HTM 07-01 update
Well, it’s an update that isn’t an update! Is that an undate? The Department of Health have given an assurance that this ‘new version’ of HTM 07-01 contains no substantive change […]
The new no-sharps sharps?
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 […]
HTM 07-01 update now available
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 […]
Unhelpful impasse after needle find
A quite unhelpful impasse has developed following a needle find outside a block of flats in Swansea. A “mountain” of 50 rubbish bags have been left to build up outside […]
Essex landowner allowed healthcare waste to be dumped on farmland
A landowner who allowed healthcare wastes to be dumped on farmland without an environmental permit is awaiting sentence in the crown court. The Environment Agency (EA) has reported that a lagoon […]
Another lost needle?
We on the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum concern ourselves, regularly, with the issue of needles lost in dangerous locations, discarded on the ground, into long grass or in sand, dropped into […]
Growing health hazard from clinical (medical) waste in Iraq
“Raghed Sarmad, 32, and her two children, aged seven and eight, spend their days scavenging through piles of rubbish in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in search of anything they can sell […]
Hobart school kids share syringes to prick themselves
Three students at a Hobart primary school have been found pricking each other with a syringe they found outside a doctor’s surgery. The incident is the fourth in as many […]
What does waste look like?
What does waste look like? Not a silly question, since waste takes all forms and descriptions are many and varied, with different individuals seeing waste in entirely different ways, as […]
Collecting used sharps from home users
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 […]
Love it or loathe it? PVC in hospitals
Love it or loathe it? PVC cannot be eliminated from hospitals, for flooring or for the manufacture of IV bags and tubing where crystal clarity and high flexibility are essential. […]
Stericycle clinical waste incinerator violates air quality standards; allegations of cheating
A medical waste incinerator in North Salt Lake has been cited for releasing too much emissions and falsifying tests. Stericycle was handed the violation by the Division of Air Quality on Wednesday. […]
Finding a home for unused medical supplies
What to do with all of those unwanted medical supplies? The pack of 6 with just 2 used; the unused gauzes or tubing sets; the spare syringes and needles? Even […]
Man put police at infection risk with needle
Echoing in some part this report from US, a Dundee IV drug user placed Police officers at risk of sharps injury and infection when he failed to disclose he had an uncapped needle […]
Londonderry spillage of ‘medical waste sack’
Trust orders report as bags labelled ‘medical waste’ found on road. So screams the headline of the Londonderry Sentinel. It is a cause for concern, for several reasons. On May […]
How much waste after knee replacement surgery?
Knee replacement surgery produces more waste than family of four in one week. Operations to replace worn out knees in Canada are generating nearly half a million kilograms of surgical […]
Pakistan clinical waste failures
Last week, I was invited by the BBC to provide comment on an investigative news story from Lahore where untreated clinical wastes were passed directly to waste scavengers who sorted plastics, inevitably […]
10 detained over illegal medical waste trade
Ten people have been detained by police for alleged illegal trading, transporting and storing of medical waste in Puning City in south China’s Guangdong Province. Yan Qiusheng and Lin Donghao, vice presidents of […]
Trinidad clinical waste woes
Trinidad is always described as a lush green island of considerable beauty but has its many problems. Among these is the failure to properly manage clinical waste disposal, which is tossed […]
Lean supply approach for sharps containers reduces waste
NHS Supply Chain has helped one of its suppliers cut packaging and transport costs by 63 per cent. It assisted a supplier of clinical waste containers to redesign the packaging of […]
Stericycle – vitriol and threats continue
We have previously reported the extent of vitriol directed at Stericycle for these perfectly legitimate contracting of waste disposal services to so-called ‘abortion clinics’ in US. Now, a group is calling […]
Body parts found buried in Poland
Sounding more like a tale from some Transylvanian horror, Polish prosecutors say they are questioning a man suspected of burying body parts and other clinical (medical) wastes instead of delivering […]
Sharps injury legislation, Ireland
Ireland has not been backward at making the most of EU laws and subsidies though it has now found itself in deep financial peril as a consequence. But less advantageous though […]
Bloodborne virus warning over illegal tattooists
There seem to be plenty of tattooists in the UK but perhaps that really isn’t enough to go around, or they are too expensive. As a – very poor – […]
Clinical waste firm aims for zero waste to landfill
Clinical waste company SRCL has announced it is aiming to meet a zero waste to landfill target by the end of the year. SRCL also revealed that 60% of the waste […]
This septic isle?
Once again, this week (22nd to 28th April 2013) is the highlight of the Marine Conservation Society’s fight against marine litter with the Big Beach Clean-up. Over 110 beaches across the […]
Hospital hotels?
The press are today full of comment about hospital hotels, a new – at least new to the UK – initiative to use hotels as a half-way house for patients […]