The public sector service industrial action on Wednesday will disrupt many services. Waste collections will be included among these disruptions and where clinical waste collections from domestic premises and other small community-based producers such as nursing homes some GPs and dental surgeries, veterinary clinics and tattooists/piercers etc are provided by a Local Authory, Wednesday collections may be cancelled.

Those LAs contracting out their services will operate as usual, but for others a missed collection might be inevitable. With limited if any storage space and a widespread policy of one container out, one new container supplied, waste containers may be in short supply and storage space over-filled. Wastes may be left outside, with no security and at worse significant risk to public health. Uncollected wastes are likely to be eft where they stand.

Without getting into the rights and wrongs of the public sector service dispute, the consequences can be considerable and must not be overlooked. What can be done about this? In reality, very little, though in extremis we might hope that LAs, GPs and pharmacists will go teh extra mile to help. And we must hope that wastes left outside will be removed for some slightly more secure storage until next week. Even more important is the necessity of an adequate supply of waste containers, sacks and sharps bins, for waste producers who should never be placed into a situation where the correct container is unavailable and an impromptu waste container is pressed into use since that is a recipe for disaster.