Placenta find prompts police ‘hunt’
Police have launched an investigation after a horrified dog walker found a placenta and medical equipment in woodland. The grisly discovery was made as the woman walked her dog in South […]
healthcare waste
Hepatitis C – a growing hazard for waste handlers
The most recent national estimates suggest that around 216,000 individuals are chronically infected with hepatitis C (HCV) in the UK. A proportion of these, especially those on the farthest periphery of society […]
Scottish Government prohibits disposal of miscarried foetuses as clinical waste
HOSPITALS have been banned from disposing of aborted and miscarried babies by burning them as clinical waste. The Scottish Government have issued guidelines to health boards stating the practice is […]
South coast bin men face needles in black sacks
Two binmen from West Sussex are facing a risk of infection and months of blood tests after being accidentally pricked by hypodermic needles. The needles had been left incorrectly in […]
Exhuming landfilled clinical wastes
The recovery of identifiable clinical waste items including catheters and cannulae, medical device wrappers and fluid-filled tubing, syringes and needles when exhuming wastes from landfill sites is surprisingly common. From […]
Safe disposal of medications and sharps in the home setting
The US FDA is hosting a webinar “Safe Disposal of Medications and Sharps in the Home Setting” on August 23, 2012 at 13:00-14:00 eastern time. The webinar is part of […]
Safe management of healthcare wastes at Bir Hospital, Kathmandu
It is far too easy to believe that the safe management of healthcare waste is something of a done deal, with improvement required only in cost minimization and resource recovery […]
Interim Clinical Waste Manager (NHS)
Location: South West England Salary: £200 – £300 per day Type: Temporary Reference: 423275 An experienced waste manager is required for an NHS organisation for an interim contract. Concentrating on the […]
Complains about appalling state of hospital toilets
Toilets at the at the Royal Cornwall Hospital were in an “absolutely disgusting” state, according to a patient. Last updated: Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Do not recycle
Reduce, re-use, recycle. We hear it often but sometimes it is simply not appropriate. A Colorado dentist, Dr Stephen Stein, stands accused of possibly exposing patients to HIV by reusing syringes […]
Road spillage of medical (clinical) wastes
A report from the US tells of an accidental spillage of sharps waste from a truck. “The driver was on a routine route was unaware that a five gallon and […]
What are sharps?
Needlestick injuries may carry devastating consequences, even is seroconversion does not occur. Needle-related injury is the first and most obvious concern though latterly the term ‘sharps injury’ has been introduced to widen […]
Medicines waste – the tip of a very large iceberg
The Guardian reports of the approximately £150 million of medicines returned to pharmacists each year that are “wasted” and destroyed by incineration rather than re-issued. It is, of course, a tale of […]
An Olympic shame?
The Olympics are upon us. As one who lives in London, I can’t say for one moment that I’m looking forward to the unprecedented level of disruption that is will […]
Managing Norovirus waste
Norovirus outbreaks continue to be a major seasonal problem and cause huge disruption to care services with substantial morbidity and mortality. What to do with Norovirus waste? Much waste will be destined for the toilet […]
Waste audit guidance for hospitals
The Environment Agency has issued an example hospital waste audit plan and report format. There is no requirement to use this particular format but it is expected to demonstrate an effective approach to conducting this […]
Body parts and medical waste bake in containers
Refrigerating clinical wastes is something that occasionally appears on the UK agenda but is rightly dismissed as an unnecessary energy expenditure (though with global warming perhaps things will change). However, […]
How do you take you coffee?
Coffee is an increasing popular drink, overtaking tea as the national drink. Coffee shops seem to be everywhere, with outlets in the high street, in book shops and libraries, in […]
Spanish hospital waste is found in Santa Catarina
The IRS has seized about 20 tons of garbage sent from Spain to Brazil. The waste was in a container at the port of Itajai, approximately 60 miles from Florianopolis. The load contains dirty […]
Heatwave
The weather has been topsy-turvey for a few years now and the predictions, or should that be the expectations, are that the trend will continue. While winters may be wetter and […]
Difficult contract terms
Flagged up by the Waste Management Networking group of LinkedIn, the BBC are reporting some disquiet over the contract terms imposed by PHS Wastetech. Accused of bullying small businesses by using unfair […]
Clinical (medical) waste in Saskatoon landfill
Saskatoon is in the middle of nowhere – quite literally, it is located in the most central part of Canada and has few, if any, close neighbours. This makes a particularly […]
Technical proposal for the review of hazardous properties
The assessment of the ‘hazardousness’ of wastes is done based on Decision 2000/532/EC on the List of Waste (LOW) and Annex III to Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, which defines the properties […]
Safe Management of Healthcare Waste v2
Version 2 of the Safe Management of Healthcare Waste guide is now available on Space for Health (http://www.spaceforhealth.nhs.uk/). All 402 pages are there for your consideration, including much poor science and […]
LA guidance notes for clinical waste segregation and storage
LB Barnet have been working hard to update their clinical waste information for community producers. Their recently published GN 5 – Guidance Notes for Storage and Disposal of Clinical Waste explains the […]
NHS Trust outsources total waste management package
East Cheshire NHS Trust has outsourced all of its waste management to SRCL. In a predictably upbeat news release, it is reported that the Trust has become the first organisation to […]
Your waste, your responsibility
It is a truism that, at all times “Your waste [is] your responsibility”. Nobody would argue with that but sometimes this creates a precedent against which the blameless can be unfairly measured. […]
HIV from sharps injury
It is becoming increasingly common to downplay or overlook completely the possibility of bloodborne virus infection after sharps injury or other blood or bloodstained body fluid exposure. The low incidence of […]
Community clinical waste problems?
In a remarkably no-news item appearing in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, an elderly pensioner complains that he unexpectedly received a bright yellow clinical waste bin and four ‘huge bags’ delivered to […]
Anibiotics in the environment
We have discussed on the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum, over many years, the problem of drug residues in the environment. It is an issue in which we stand very much […]