Biohazardous waste is any biological residue That’s potentially harmful for animal or human health, such as:
• human blood and its components, in liquid or semi-liquid form, dried or not • human physiological 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 human tissues
• animal waste: all animal carcasses and body parts
• sharps waste medical utensils such as scalpels, needles, glass slides glass pipettes, broken glass that have been contaminated with infectious material.
To help healthcare operators and laboratories navigate through the laws on waste disposal, pest control squirrel removal, the Department of Health has created the following classification:
Offensive waste
It’s non-clinical waste thatdoesn’t contain chemical or pharmaceutical substances and’s non-infectious, but may be disagreeable to anyone who comes into contact with it.
You have to segregate and municipal rubbish that is mixed and healthcare offensive residues.
If you have produced more than 7kg of municipal offensive byproducts, or have more than 1 bag in a collection period, you need to segregate it from any mixed municipal waste.
If you’ve made less, you can dispose of your municipal offensive waste on your mixed municipal waste (‘black bag’).
Plaster and similar wastes
Most plaster byproducts are non-infectious. It should be kept separately from any plaster waste that’s infectious, which should be put in the infectious clinical waste flow that was bagged.
Waste medicines
A medication is considered to be cytostatic or cytotoxic for classification purposes if it’s any of the following:
• acutely toxic
• carcinogenic
• mutagenic
Sharps and byproducts that are related
The safe management and disposal of sharps is vital to ensure the risks associated with handling sharps are removed and to guarantee compliance with the Hazardous Waste Regulations (Special Waste Regulations in Scotland).
The disposal of sharps is set by the medicinal contamination. To guarantee compliance with the Hazardous Waste Regulations the segregation and storage of sharps in color coded bins and unique containers is essential.
• Orange bins-For the storage and disposal of sharps not containing or contaminated with medicines, such as sharps used for blood samples and acupuncture
The storage and disposal of sharps contaminated with or containing medications or anaesthetics
• Purple bins-For the disposal of sharps and medicines with contents or contamination
• Blue bins-For the use of out of date medications, medication denaturing kits that are used and lost items from use of pharmaceuticals such as boxes or bottles with drug vials and residues, gloves, gloves, connecting tubes, syringe bodies waste.
Containment that is particular is required by anatomical 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.
Anatomical waste includes:
• Body parts
• Organs
Laboratory chemicals and photochemicals
Hazardous chemical waste-includes:
• 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 which display one or more of the hazardous properties (HP1 to HP15) listed in the Regulations (see the Environment Agency Guidance WM3).
The Environmental Protection Act includes a’Duty of Care’ which requires all persons involved in the handling of waste, including producers, to take measures that are appropriate and reasonable to ensure that:
• Waste is only kept, treated, deposited or disposed of in accordance with a waste management licence or other authorisation;
• Waste doesn’t escape from the control of the holder;
• Waste is transferred to persons such as waste carriers or disposal operations permitted to take that type of waste;
• All transfers / movements of this waste are accompanied by an adequate description of the waste that will allow waste handled and subsequently to be identified.
Specialist laboratory waste disposal services are offered by all Waste Matters from labs to colleges, schools and universities, to a broad customer base throughout the UK.
From our waste management facility site in Kent, we can provide a lab waste disposal and collection service of lab waste and any chemicals.
We gather with our own vehicles and the Environment Agency often inspects our laboratory waste disposal facility.
This is vital in providing peace of mind to our customers and ensuring the laboratory waste is treated in-keeping and exceeding all recommended guidelines.