Free sharps container

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a good Tuesday. The sun just came out here after a few days of grey and it is quite nice. Too bad it will be setting in about an hour.

I just wanted to pass along this website where you can get a free sharps container. I have done it twice now and just reordered my third one. There is no obligation, they do not send you junk mail, and there really is no catch. You just fill in your name & address (phone # is optional; I never give it) and in about a week, a new sharps container shows up at your house. It asks you at the bottom of the form if you are currently on Enbrel or if you are enrolled in Enliven. I check "no" for each of these and have no problems. Once your container gets about halfway full, just reorder another one and you are good to go. I take my full containers to my vet and they get rid of them for me. It's awesome.

The website is: https://www.enlivenservices.com/ra/ongo ... tainer.jsp

 

I did this too and it was great. Where I live I have to take the container to our landfill. But they let me empty it into their big container, so I've been reusing the same container.

Thanks for posting this Sarah. Great idea!

 

The landfill?! I can honestly say I have never thought about where used needles go, but it is sort of freaky that they put them in the GROUND! Yikes. :shock:

 

I don't know what they do with them, but it's part of their hazardous waste division. Somewhere there's a website that has how to dispose of sharps by state. That's how I found out about it. None of the vets here will take them.

 

Oh geez, as if Gator's time travel question hasn't left me in knots, now I go find the state disposal website and I find this: Missouri: The state of Missouri has not developed written guidance on the disposal of household generated syringes.

Colorado says you can put them in your regular trash as long as they are sealed up: Colorado: Colorado offers guidance on disposing of household-generated syringes through two bulletins created by the state’s Department of Public Health and Environment, Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division. These bulletins are entitled “Household Medical Waste Management” and Infectious Waste Management.
The bulletins include these recommendations:
Needles, syringes, lancets, and other medical sharps should be:
• Placed in strong plastic or metal containers with screw-on or tightly secured lids (examples include empty bleach bottles, liquid detergent bottles, plastic milk jugs, or coffee cans. Strong tape should be used to secure the lid of coffee cans.)
• Once the container is full and sealed, it can be placed in the regular household trash.

 

Sarah, I know you like readings. So here's one for you:
http://discovermagazine.com/2010/mar/02 ... travelers/
The whole time travel thing really messes with my head. And this article should help you with that.

On the Sharps container thing. I'd just like to say that the needle snippers do not take care of the problem and should not be used without a sharps container too which basically eliminates the need for the snippers.

From an institutional level, I think the proper way to handle the Sharps is to have it incinerated. It really should NOT go in our landfills for a number of reasons: like landfills often end up being parks, golf courses or backyards to some child and the safety of the hard working folks who handle our trash. Those landfills are known to burp up all sorts of horrible things after they've been closed and had time to stew a bit.

So despite what the regulations are in your state, I just beg EVERYONE to rise above the minimum requirements and put your sharps waste in an approved sharps container and give it to the appropriate agency in your state/county/city for proper disposal. If one gets a large enough sharps container [2 gallon] then it is not that big of a deal to take to the appropriate agency every approximate 9 months. It really is kind of a big deal. And PLEASE, NEVER EVER put your sharps in the recycling!!

Also shopmedvet.com has very good prices on sharps containers. I had been purchasing the 2 gallon Kendall containers but I'm going to try 2, 1 gallon containers this time and once sealed there is no way to get into them so the full one can just be parked around here until I'm ready to perhaps take both to our local drop-off. Hocks also sells the 2 gallon Kendall.

 

By me there is a drop off box outside the local hospital, just like dropping off mail in a blue mail thingy - it's pretty cool really. Except that the design is wretchedly poor and you can actually reach down in and take out the container if you want (I know because I jammed the dropper door once and voila - fixed it myself). So if someone wanted those syringes they could certainly get them, so it's kind of like "what's the point?" security.