Local Authorities have a statutory obligation to collect discarded sharps and related hazardous waste items from public land. Audit of LA performance standardsidentifies a widely variable standard of operation, with some LAs abrogating their formal duty with instruction to members of the public to collect sharps themselves, often in a manner that is palpably unsafe. Others claim a more competent urgent collection service operating 24/7 but in reality hide behind an answerphone to operate a restricted service during office hours only.

Most LAs will shy away from collections of discarded sharps from private land, though some will collect from private residential properties without additional cost. However, there is a duty to collect from any location in order to prevent immediate harm to members of the public, for example from squatted land and from open land to which the public normally has access. Elsewhere, a charge may apply.

The going rate for single LA collection of discarded sharps is between £25 and £45. One Bradford businessman is complaining about a £35 charge to remove several sharps and a sharps bin dropped on is located “yards from a drug rehabilitation centre”. Perhaps some commonsense should be applied and charges waived. And as reported, with more than 4,000 discarded needles found on Bolton’s streets and open land in the last 12 months, and no doubt very many more on land in private ownership about which the LA have no concern, the marginal cost to make just a few more collections for a common good seems trivial and a refusal to waive charges, let alone to incur a delay while negotiating such charges seem both churlish and dangerous.

If LAs refuse to aid private land owners,, the responsibility of that land owner is of course to dispose of the sharps in a safe and approved manner. But how does the landowner know that? Should we anticipate that an occasional needle will, with the best of intentions, be scooped up and placed into an inappropriate container for disposal with trade waste, or worse find its way into an empty drinks can only later to be discovered on a picking line at a recycling centre?

With a plan for safety first, LAs should reconsider their approach to collection of discarded drug litter. This protects and reassures communities, and helps prevents injury to individuals handling sharps at the site of discard, and others who may come into contact with then if the y subsequently find their way into an inappropriate waste stream. It would reduce LA income, but with the additional cost of administration I doubt the £35 charge is of any significance. To absorb the cost, to serve the community and reduce the likelihood of injury or other incident, would be money well spent.