Staff working in hospitals, doctor’s offices, clinics, or any other medical facility will be quick to tell you that they never stop. It is a very busy job, never more so than since the start of the pandemic two and a half years ago. Even now, with the introduction of the vaccine, and the calming down of hospital numbers due to the pandemic, the mammoth effort is on to catch up with the huge backlog of appointments and operations that were all put on hold for months on end while all staff were redirected to help covid patients. With all this extra work, an important issue that is not really thought about by many is the correct disposal of pharmaceutical waste. But this is just as vital a work as any other in a hospital, or any medical facility there is. The aim of any medical facility is to help people and protect them from dangers and harm to their health. By not disposing of pharmaceutical waste correctly, this would counteract the good being done and all the hard work and efforts by the staff. 

So, what can be done to dispose of pharmaceutical waste correctly? Fortunately, in the states there are many laws and regulations in place to help. By following these, you will be protecting all members of staff and the general public too. An important step to take is to separate the different types of waste. This is because the different types of waste have different types of laws and regulations governing them, due to the fact that they pose different dangers to humans and to the environment. For example, someone could be in danger of being pricked by an improperly discarded syringe so used syringes need to be treated in one way, whereas used personal protective equipment could have dangerous fluids on them that could pose very different risks and so have other laws governing how they should be disposed of. While a syringe could poke through a bin bag and be a danger to people and so need to be kept in a box at all times, personal protective equipment could be disposed of in a bin bag, so long as guidelines and rules are still followed. 

Hearing of so many rules and laws around this issue can seem a bit overwhelming but they really are necessary and are there to save lives and protect the health of the nation so it is important that we follow these rigidly and all play our part.