A news report tells of a number of needles found with black refuse sack on a street in Flintshire, and the finder just happened to be the local mayor!

With the expectation that things would be dealt with quick, the mayor reported the find to the council and to the police. We are not told how long that took, and ho successful it was, but we are told that the council ‘try’ to clear needles within 2 hours, and black sacks within 48 hours.

Flintshire is one of many councils that score only modestly in the current LA web audit. There is no index term on their web site for syringes of for needles and those seeking information would have to navigate to the clinical waste page to find information about reporting needle finds.

Flintshire will not collect discarded needles from private land as somehow these ‘do not pose any risk to members of the public’. That is a convenient stance and is arguably correct, placing the responsibility and cost burden on the land owner. However, what happens in the case of a private residential property? If a householder sees this on the Flintshire web site they may be tempted to go elsewhere, or try a DIY removal. From then on, problems arise with safe handling and subsequent disposal – that is not a good situation!

But I guess for the mayor things happened quickly, even more so once the local paper got involved. A 2 hour retrieval target, as quoted by Flintshire, is remarkably common but probably little more than aspirational. Call at 5pm on Friday and in most cases you should not expect anything to happen before 8.30am Monday. Office hours only is the norm, though some LAs operate until 8pm, 10pm or even through the night though these are few in number.

For others, 2 hours is easy to say but less certain in delivery. I bet that the mayor was happy with the response time, though perhaps he had as much difficulty as everyone else and, as we have reported on the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum on many previous occasions, had to go to the press to get some action.