The simple answer is yes! Sharps bins are a legal requirement for any public place. Most often these are found in the healthcare sectors, & medical rooms in schools and public buildings.
With self-administered medications now commonplace, it is more and more important for public buildings to have sharps bins in their bathrooms.
Whether an office building, restaurant or supermarket, you need to keep the public safe from harm by providing sharps bins for safe disposal.
The sharps bins are used to dispose of medical needles or any other sharp medical instruments that if not handled correctly could pierce a person’s skin.
Generally speaking in the washroom and waste industry single use containers are used and are collected by a licenced waste remover on a periodical basis depending on how quickly they are filled up.
The needles are dropped into the container by the user without touching the outside of the container in order to prevent cross contamination. Needles should always be dropped inside and never pushed down or forced inside the unit. It is very important that no cross-contamination occurs.
Sharps bins are available in various sizes from 1L up to 50L. The size needed for your site will vary depending on the number of people at your site and the nature of the site.
It is common practice for workplaces that have public use to have a smaller bin on site in the event that it becomes necessary to use by employees or one of your customers. It is becoming standard practice for many customers to expect this facility in places such as leisure centres, cinemas and similar environments.
Different Types of Sharps Bins:
- Orange Lidded Bin – used for sharps to take blood and administer saline
- Yellow Lidded Bin – used for sharps that dispense medicine that may contain traces of medicine after use
- Purple Lidded Bin – used for sharps that dispense cytotoxic or cytostatic medicines i.e. cancer, HRT, hormone treatments etc.
- Green/Blue Lidded Bin – other pharmaceutical sharps for controlled drugs
