You might feel squeamish when you hear the term “medical waste.” It’s a catchall term that includes many items. You need to dispose of all of them properly if you’re going to stay compliant with the law and also to protect anyone in your home or employees that work for you.
Your company might require medical waste disposal, and knowing about what constitutes this kind of waste and what to do with it makes sense. Let’s look at a few facts about medical waste to enhance your general level of understand right now.
Not Just Companies Create Medical Waste
Business entities might create medical waste, especially if they’re in the healthcare industry or connected to it in some way. However, you may not realize that the average home produces some of this kind of waste on most days as well.
Something like a used tissue can fall into the medical waste category. So can a used bandage. However, you don’t have to worry about any laws governing those kinds of waste. You can simply dispose of them by throwing them away without having to take any extraordinary precautions.
However, you’ll probably want to throw away more significant medical waste that your home produces in a more acceptable way. For instance, maybe you or someone else in your house has a medical condition where they inject themselves using needles. Individuals who have developed diabetes might need to do this, for instance.
You can get rid of these syringes, called “sharps,” by putting them in an approved sharps container. You can buy them from a healthcare provider, at a pharmacy, or through a medical supply company.
Once you have used a sharps container and you want to throw it away, you should look at your local laws. Some states will allow you to simply throw the whole container in the trash, but others have more particular procedures.
You Can Use the Double Bag Method
You might also decide to throw away medical waste in your home though a simple double bag method. That means you’ll take things like used bandages, medication packaging, used rubber gloves, etc., and put them in an opaque, heavy-duty trash bag.
You can double up on the bag and double knot the end of it if that makes you feel better. You can never be too careful when it comes to disposing of these kinds of materials.
You Must Also Avoid Unacceptable Behaviors with Home-Based Medical Waste
You also need to avoid certain behaviors with at-home medical waste that governing or regulatory bodies consider unacceptable. You can’t recycle any of these kinds of waste. You must use a sharps container instead of throwing the used sharps right in the trash.
You should also never flush unwanted medical down the toilet unless a pharmacist or doctor has given you explicit approval. Using the double bag method makes sense for this kind of waste as well. You can keep any medication you won’t use away from children and others this way.
You Can Get Red Biohazard Bags for Work
Let’s step away from the home environment now and talk about medical waste and best practices at work. We mentioned earlier how you’ll likely produce plentiful medical waste if you work somewhere like a doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital. However, you might also produce medical waste if you work in a traditional office setting.
Medical emergencies or routine medical events can happen in an office. Someone might get a nosebleed, in which case you suddenly have tissues covered in blood. Someone might use a sharp in an office to deal with a blood sugar issue.
You might have a sharps container on the premises, but you can also purchase red biohazard bags. You have probably seen these before at some point. They’re bright red and have the universally recognized biohazard symbol on them.
You may have a medical waste company that comes to the office periodically to pick these up. Make sure you’re disposing of them in the proper way or you might find yourself looking at a fine or other disciplinary action.
You Can Designate a Special Area for Medical Waste
In an office setting, you can also designate a particular area as the spot where your workers should put any medical waste until such time as the company you’ve hired can retrieve it. That area should be well clear of dining facilities or anywhere else it can cause contamination.