Clinical waste in the household

There is a clear distinction between clinical waste and other medical waste. Under the unified definitions, classification and assessment framework laid out in the “Health Technical Memorandum 07-01: Safe Management of Healthcare Waste”, medical waste is categorised four ways:

• Infectious clinical waste
• Offensive / hygiene waste
• Hazardous waste
• Waste dangerous for carriage

Only two types of waste arising from healthcare activity are considered to be both clinical waste and hazardous waste, and therefore unsuitable to be placed in the normal household waste stream.

These are:

(i) Sharps and other clinical infectious waste (EWC codes 18 01 01 and 18 01 03)

(ii) Cytotoxic and cytostatic medicines (EWC codes: 18 01 08, 20 01 31)

What about clinical waste produced in a household?

• Some types of clinical waste are considered to be hazardous. Therefore there are special ways of dealing with different types of clinical waste.
• If you are being treated in your own home by a health care professional, then the healthcare professional will advise on the correct method of disposal for your clinical waste.
• Under no circumstances should residents place sharps waste or sharps containers in any bins provided by the Council for general household waste.
• Where the householder is a self-caring patient who uses injectables (for example a person with diabetes) the GP or healthcare worker should prescribe the householder the appropriate container (for example a sharps box) and advise them of local disposal options.
• If you are producing clinicaly infectious waste and producing waste associated with Cytotoxic and cytostatic medicines and you are not being treated by a health care professional in your own home, please contact the Council for further information regarding the safe disposal of this waste.
• Please contact Streetscene for any other questions regarding clinical waste.