Sharps waste

Common medical materials treated as sharps waste are hypodermic needles, disposable scalpels and blades, contaminated glass and certain plastics, and guidewires used in surgery.

[1] In addition to needles and blades, anything attached to them, such as syringes and injection devices, is also considered sharps waste.

Blades can include razors, scalpels, X-Acto knives, scissors, or any other items used for cutting in a medical or biological research setting, regardless of whether they have been contaminated with biohazardous material.

Health care professionals expose themselves to the risk of transmission of these diseases when handling sharps waste.

The large volume handled by health care professionals on a daily basis increases the chance that an injury may occur.

The general public can occasionally be at risk of sustaining injuries from sharps waste as well when hypodermic needles are improperly disposed of by injection drug users.

In the United States, sharps containers are usually red and marked with the universal biohazard symbol for ease of recognition.

Airports and large institutions commonly have sharps containers available in restrooms for safe disposal for users of injection drugs, such as insulin-dependent diabetics.

Smaller clinics or offices in the US without such facilities are required by federal regulations to hire the services of a company that specializes in transporting and properly disposing of the hazardous wastes.

legislation in France has stated that pharmaceutical companies supplying self injection medications are responsible for the disposal of spent needles.

[citation needed] A report by the Canadian Mental Health Association found that supervised injection sites help reduce the amount of discarded needles on streets.

[2] With more than sixteen billion injections administered annually worldwide,[3] needles are the largest contributor to sharps waste.

As these technologies have been developed, governments have attempted to make them commonplace to ensure sharps waste safety.

Factors such as high disease prevalence and lack of health care professionals amplify the dangers involved with sharps waste, and the cost of newer disposal technology makes them unlikely to be used.

[citation needed] Improper sharps management is a major factor involved in what is categorized as unsafe injections.