Items NOT Acceptable

Household Sharps

Many people use sharps (needles, syringes, and lancets) as part of their home medical care. Proper disposal of sharps is important to the safety of the sharps user and the people who handle trash. Follow the guidelines in this brochure to keep yourself and others safe.

• Use a container that is leakproof, shatterproof, and puncture proof with a screw top.
  Good choices are durable plastic bottles such as empty bleach or detergent bottles. Bad choices are glass, aluminum, cardboard containers or metal coffee cans with flimsy lids.

• Place sharps in the container IMMEDIATELY
  after using.
• Do not recap, bend, or break the needles or lancets.
• Secure the screw top on the container and label
  it "SHARPS" with a waterproof marker on the container or on masking tape over the container.
  DO NOT label it "Medical Waste," "Biohazard," etc.
• Keep the container away from children!
• Place additional sharps in the container, closing it securely each time.
  When the container is full, be sure the top is screwed on securely then apply tape around the top and neck of the container.

The preferred method for final disposal is to:

1. Take the properly labelled and taped container to a hospital or nursing home.
    
   OR
    
2. Put the sharps container in your trash to be discarded.
   DO NOT include sharps or sharps containers in a recycling bin!