Mums in Toormina, Australia, have been complaining about the placement of a sharps bin close to the grounds of a school playground after a child suffered a sharps injury on a nearby discarded needle.

Now another mum has come forward to complain about the fact that while disposing of used insulin syringes in that bin she found it full and overflowing.

http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2010/10/21/needle-scare-creates-stir/

In many communities, arrangements for the legitimate disposal of sharps used, for example, by diabetics is not managed by return to hospital or Local Authority collection. Instead, patients are left to manage their own disposal and used sharps in domestic waste are a way of life. Community sharps bins are a vast improvement, and can double up with those used to collect addict needles. However, nothing is perfect and there is always the possibility of a dropped needle, by an addict or careless patient.

One thing is clear. Where sharps bins are provided, these must be managed properly. Kept clean and secure, and well-maintained, bins must be serviced regularly and never allowed to become overfilled.

Children often seem to be attracted  to discarded needles. Those viewing an overfilled sharps bin, one with a defective lid or with a blocked chute would almost certainly be attracted like  magnets; the result is inevitable – a sharps injury or near miss, a patient requiring post-exposure prophylaxis and follow-up, and a mum and dad critically stressed irrespective of the outcome.