How To: Safely Dispose of Needles and Other Sharps

This section is for everyone.


Sharps are a problem because they can stick into other people legitimately handling your waste or animals who are raiding your garbage.

The worry that someone will get AIDs from being pricked by a used sharp is greatly in excess of the likelihood of this happening. But you never can tell. Hep C and B can also be transmitted from sharps and hepatitis C is the most transferable of these.

To treat a contaminated sharp injury in time a person has to get appropriate antiviral drugs within an hour. These are highly toxic and need to be taken for a month.

Please take the safest measures you can to dispose of your sharps. Here are the best ways:

Use a specially designed container. This is usually hard plastic with a lid that cannot be opened once it is locked.  They can often be obtained from pharmacies or your diabetic clinic.

Some pharmacies and hospitals provide a sharp box swap system. You may have to pay towards this service.

You can clip off the needle or lancet tip with a needle clipping device that stores the needles inside. This can then be thrown away when full. If you do this dispose of your syringes appropriately too.

A “cin bin” or sharps box is easiest to use because the whole syringe and needle can be disposed of at once. They can be bulky so having a needle clipper for use outside the house can be a great help.

If you have to dispose of sharps in your garbage as a last resort you can use a heavy opaque plastic bottle  eg a bleach bottle. When it is 3/4 full screw the lid back on and securely tape it down.

Keep your sharps and disposal box away from younger children or pets.


Reference Info:
Thanks to the BC (British Columbia) Children’s Hospital . They have a great selection of leaflets particularly aimed at younger type ones.

Where to Next?
Please all proceed to the  How To: Monitor My Blood Sugar Appropriately section.