Waste is any biological residue that is potentially harmful for animal or human health, squirrel pest control, such as:
• human blood and its components, in liquid or semi-liquid form, dried or not • human bodily fluids (including semen, vaginal secretions, cerebral spinal fluid, synovial fluid, pleural fluid, pericardial fluid, peritoneal fluid, amniotic fluid, and saliva), in liquid or semi-liquid form, dried or not
• human waste: body components, organs, and all tissues
• animal waste: all animal carcasses and body parts
• microbiological waste: lab byproducts containing infectious agents (including lost specimen cultures, stocks of etiologic agents, discarded live and attenuated viruses, wastes from the production of biologicals and serums, disposable culture dishes, and devices used to transfer, inoculate and mix cultures)
• sharps waste medical utensils such as scalpels, needles, glass slides, lancets, glass pipettes that have been contaminated with infectious material.
To help healthcare operators and laboratories navigate through the rigorous legislation on waste disposal, the classification has been created by the Department of Health:
Offensive waste
It’s non-clinical waste thatdoesn’t contain chemical or pharmaceutical substances and’s non-infectious, but might be disagreeable to anyone who comes into contact with it.
You have to segregate and combined rubbish and healthcare offensive residues.
If you have produced over 7kg of municipal offensive byproducts, or have more than 1 bag in a set period, you must segregate it from any mixed municipal waste.
If you’ve made less, you can dispose of your municipal offensive waste in your mixed municipal waste (‘black bag’).
Plaster and wastes that are similar
Most plaster byproducts are non-infectious. It should be kept separately from any rust waste that’s infectious, which must be put in the infectious waste flow that was bagged.
Waste medicines
If it is any of the following, A medication is considered to be cytostatic or cytotoxic for classification purposes:
• acutely toxic
• carcinogenic
• mutagenic
• toxic for reproduction
Sharps and related byproducts
The safe management and disposal of sharps is very important to ensure the risks associated with handling sharps are eliminated and to ensure compliance with the Hazardous Waste Regulations (Special Waste Regulations in Scotland).
The use of sharps is set by the contamination that was medicinal. To guarantee compliance with storage of sharps in colour coded bins and the Hazardous Waste Regulations the segregation and containers that are special is important.
• Orange bins-For the storage and disposal of sharps not containing or contaminated with medications, like sharps used for acupuncture and blood samples
• Purple bins-For the disposal of medicines and sharps with Cyto-static or Cyto-toxic contents or contamination
• Blue bins-For the use of out of date medications medication denaturing kits and items from use in the handling Anatomical waste.
Special containment is required by waste from operating theatres and must be stored, transported and disposed of as hazardous waste to make sure that there’s not any threat to human health or to the environment.
Waste includes:
• Body parts
• Organs
• Blood bags and blood preserves
Laboratory photochemicals and chemicals
• Wastes classified as’hazardous’ in The Hazardous Waste Regulations 2005 amended 2016 (Schedules 1 and 2) or at The European Waste Catalogue (EWC)’List of Wastes’.
• Other wastes that exhibit one or more of the hazardous properties (HP1 to HP15) listed in the Regulations (see the Environment Agency Guidance WM3).
Any medical equipment or other equipment (such as gloves, towels, used bandages and dressings, tubes) that have come into contact with hazardous materials and consequently exhibit more than trace elements of those materials are themselves also classified as hazardous waste.
The Environmental Protection Act includes a’Duty of Care’ which requires all persons involved with the handling of waste, including manufacturers, to take measures that are appropriate and reasonable to ensure that:
• Waste is kept, treated, deposited or disposed of in accordance with a waste management licence or authorisation;
• Waste does not escape from the control of the holder;
• Waste is transferred to authorised persons such as licensed disposal operations permitted to accept that type of waste or waste carriers;
• All transfers / movements of the waste are accompanied by an adequate written description of the waste which will allow waste to be identified and subsequently handled.
All Waste Matters offer specialist laboratory waste disposal services from commercial labs to universities, colleges and schools, to an extensive client base throughout the UK.
From our waste management facility site in Kent, we can provide collection service and a laboratory waste disposal of any chemicals and laboratory waste.
We collect with our vehicles and our lab waste disposal facility is inspected by the Environment Agency.
This is vital in ensuring that the laboratory waste is treated surpassing and in-keeping all guidelines and providing our clients.