The new dawn of waste management places the responsibility for and cost of disposal at the foot of the producer. Already well-established for white goods and WEEE, can this be translated to needle disposal?

US regulators are pushing hard to enshrine in law on the manufacturers of injectable medicines a responsibility for disposal of their products. This strange, and almost certainly unworkable, statute is directed at the manufacturers of syringe pens and other pre-loaded devices, even simple syringe and needle sets if pre-loaded with any pharmaceutical product.

Quite how the manufacturers can have any level of control over disposal of their products is hard to imagine. In some circumstances, that in itself is not a sufficient reason though when the arrangements for the disposal of those millions of other needles works well the need for this additional specific legislation seems at best slight and probably quite unnecessary.

Why only pre-loaded syringes? Why not demand that the manufacturer of any injectable medicinal product take financial and legal responsibility for disposal of the needles used to administer their product? Indeed, why not demand that the needle manufacturer takes some responsibility also?

For a system that works well, most of the time, these silly ideas to extend the legislative framework covering responsibility for product disposal do us no favours.

http://www.waste-management-world.com/index/from-the-wires/wire-news-display/1439494444.html