What is biohazardous waste?
Website design By BotEap.comA biohazardous waste is any potentially dangerous biological waste for human or animal health, such as:
Website design By BotEap.com• human blood and its components, in liquid or semi-liquid form, dry or not • human body fluids (including semen, vaginal secretions, cerebrospinal fluid, synovial fluid, pleural fluid, pericardial fluid, peritoneal fluid, amniotic fluid, and saliva), in the form liquid or semi-liquid, dry or not
Website design By BotEap.com• human pathological debris: all tissues, organs and parts of the human body
Website design By BotEap.com• animal waste: all animal carcasses and body parts
Website design By BotEap.com• microbiological waste: laboratory by-products containing infectious agents (including discarded specimen cultures, stocks of etiologic agents, discarded live and attenuated viruses, wastes from the production of biologics and sera, disposable culture plates, and devices used to transfer, inoculate and mix cultures)
Website design By BotEap.com• Sharps waste: sharp medical utensils such as scalpels, needles, glass slides, lancets, glass pipettes, broken glass that have been contaminated with potentially infectious material.
Website design By BotEap.comTo help laboratories and healthcare operators navigate through the strict legislation on hazardous waste disposal, the Department of Health has created the following classification:
Website design By BotEap.comoffensive waste
Website design By BotEap.comIt is non-clinical, non-infectious waste and does not contain pharmaceutical or chemical substances, but it can be unpleasant for anyone who comes into contact with it.
Website design By BotEap.comYou must separate offensive healthcare waste from both clinical and mixed municipal waste.
Website design By BotEap.comIf you have produced more than 7kg of offensive municipal by-products, or have more than one bag in a collection period, you must segregate it from any mixed municipal waste.
Website design By BotEap.comIf you have produced less, you can dispose of your offending municipal waste in your mixed municipal waste (“black bag”).
Website design By BotEap.comPlaster and similar waste
Website design By BotEap.comMost plaster byproducts are not infectious. It should be kept separate from any infectious plaster waste, which should be placed in the bagged infectious clinical waste stream.
Website design By BotEap.comdrug residues
Website design By BotEap.comA drug is considered cytotoxic or cytostatic for classification purposes if it is any of the following:
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Website design By BotEap.com• carcinogenic
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Website design By BotEap.comSharps and Related By-Products
Website design By BotEap.comThe safe management and disposal of sharps is vital to ensure that the risks associated with handling sharps are eliminated and to ensure compliance with Hazardous Waste Regulations (Scotland Special Waste Regulations).
Website design By BotEap.comDisposal of sharps is determined by drug contamination. To ensure compliance with the Hazardous Waste Regulations, the proper segregation and storage of sharps in color-coded bins and special containers is essential.
Website design By BotEap.com• Orange Containers – For storage and disposal of sharps that do not contain or are contaminated with medication, such as sharps used for blood samples and acupuncture.
Website design By BotEap.com• Yellow containers: for the storage and disposal of sharps contaminated or containing medicines or anesthetics
Website design By BotEap.com• Purple containers: for the disposal of sharp objects and medicines with cytotoxic or cytostatic content or contamination.
Website design By BotEap.com• Blue containers-For the disposal of expired medications, used medication denaturation kits and discard items for use in the handling of pharmaceutical products such as bottles or boxes with residues, gloves, masks, connection tubes, syringe bodies and medicine vials Anatomical residues.
Website design By BotEap.comAnatomical waste from operating rooms requires special containment and must be stored, transported, and disposed of as hazardous waste to ensure that it does not present a risk to human health or the environment.
Website design By BotEap.comAnatomical debris includes:
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Website design By BotEap.comLaboratory chemicals and photochemicals
Website design By BotEap.comHazardous chemical waste: includes:
Website design By BotEap.com• Waste classified as ‘hazardous’ in the 2005 Hazardous Waste Regulation amended in 2016 (Annexes 1 and 2) or in the ‘Waste List’ of the European Waste Catalog (EWC).
Website design By BotEap.com• Other wastes displaying one or more of the hazardous properties (HP1 to HP15) listed in the Regulations (see Environmental Agency Guidance WM3).
Website design By BotEap.comAny medical supplies or other equipment (such as used gloves, towels, bandages and dressings, tubing) that have come into contact with hazardous materials and consequently show more than trace elements of these materials are also classified as hazardous waste.
Website design By BotEap.comThe Environmental Protection Act includes a ‘Duty of Care’ that requires all persons involved in waste management, including producers, to take reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure that:
Website design By BotEap.com• Waste is only stored, treated, deposited or disposed of in accordance with a waste management license or other authorization;
Website design By BotEap.com• The waste does not escape the control of the holder;
Website design By BotEap.com• Waste is only transferred to authorized persons, such as registered waste haulers or licensed disposal operations authorized to accept that type of waste;
Website design By BotEap.com• All shipments/movements of waste are accompanied by an adequate written description of the same that will allow them to be identified and subsequently managed correctly.
Website design By BotEap.comAll Waste Matters offers specialist laboratory waste disposal services to a wide customer base across the UK, from commercial laboratories to schools, colleges and universities.
Website design By BotEap.comFrom our fully licensed waste management facility in Kent, we can offer a personalized lab waste collection and disposal service of any unwanted chemicals and lab waste.
Website design By BotEap.comWe collect with our own vehicles and our licensed laboratory waste disposal facility is regularly inspected by the Environment Agency.
Website design By BotEap.comThis is essential to give our customers complete peace of mind and ensure laboratory waste is treated in accordance with and exceeding all recommended guidelines.