Susan's Place Transgender Resources

At a year on T I have a full sharps container. I can't find any hospital, doctor's office, or pharmacy that will take them because they say it takes money to dispose of them. When my wife had her surgery last week she thought of asking a nurse and that nurse said about the only thing we can do is wrap the sharps container in tape so nothing could possibly come out and then throw it in the trash bin. That just doesn't seem right to me.

What do you guys do with your full sharps containers?

Turn them in to Walgreens. Not all Walgreens take them, it depends on city rules.

Quote from: LordKAT on December 29, 2013, 03:02:06 AM
Turn them in to Walgreens. Not all Walgreens take them, it depends on city rules.

Nope, that is one of the pharmacies I have called. I have literally called every store with a pharmacy and hospital in the area.

Pharmacies have a list of places you can dispose of sharps containers--have you asked? Even so, options are very limited in my neck of the woods, and it looks like I will have to dispose at the local dump, pay a fee, and go only on designated days. So I have stacked my sharps containers in the shed. I have some of mine and one or two from a trans friend.

They are all BD containers, but the last container I bought is from a different manufacturer and has some kind of mail-in option that I haven't looked into.

If I had a friend in a health care profession, I might ask him to do me a favor and get rid of the darned things...

Have you tried a local Pathology lab? We get rid of so many one more wouldn't matter.

Quote from: Arch on December 29, 2013, 03:32:42 AM
Pharmacies have a list of places you can dispose of sharps containers--have you asked?

Yeah, I get my T at Costco and asked them (asked Walmart too since I get my needles there) and all I get are blank stares and I don't knows. Other places I have called and asked to no avail. I've called recycling centers as well.

Good idea about the dump but then again I'm afraid some animal will get hurt by them if I do that.

Quote from: Cindy on December 29, 2013, 03:37:12 AM
Have you tried a local Pathology lab? We get rid of so many one more wouldn't matter.

Nope, haven't tried one of those. I'll see what they say, thanks.

Quote from: Simon on December 29, 2013, 03:41:22 AM
Good idea about the dump but then again I'm afraid some animal will get hurt by them if I do that.

Our dump takes them on certain days but apparently requires a fee.

I was never given a sharps container.  I asked about getting one, but my doctor said to just put them in a sturdy plastic container and put them in the trash?  ???

How about disposing them a needle exchange center?

You can take them to medical waste disposal company or sharps disposal by mail either but it depend on your state. I use sharps disposal by mail often.

I take mine to a fire department that takes them and gives me a new container for free.

Quote from: yaka on December 29, 2013, 06:47:57 AM
How about disposing them a needle exchange center?

Not all states allow needle exchange but you can google and see if your state does this. If it does then it's a good idea.

--Jay

This won't help needing to dispose of a full sharps container, but for future disposal, would a "needle clipping and storage device" work? They're usually for insulin syringes, it clips the needles off and can contain hundreds inside with no way of them getting back out. So it can just be tossed in the trash. Takes up less space than a sharps container, too.

Quote from: blink on December 29, 2013, 02:30:35 PM
would a "needle clipping and storage device" work? They're usually for insulin syringes, it clips the needles off and can contain hundreds inside with no way of them getting back out. So it can just be tossed in the trash.

Never heard of one of those but I'll definitely be looking online at medical sites to see what they're all about, thanks.

Unfortunately I didn't think this idea all the way through, all the needle clippers I'm finding online are for 28 to 31 gauge needles. But maybe they make them for other sizes and I'm just not finding it.

Quote from: blink on December 29, 2013, 03:10:31 PM
Unfortunately I didn't think this idea all the way through, all the needle clippers I'm finding online are for 28 to 31 gauge needles. But maybe they make them for other sizes and I'm just not finding it.

No worries, I'll look into it anyways. The hubs screw off the syringes I have anyways so if anything I might just start keeping the hubs and tossing the syringes to make the sharps containers last longer.

We turn ours into my wife's work - she's a vet nurse.  Try your local veterinarian.

http://www.safeneedledisposal.org/

Personally, if you can't find a legit way to dispose of them... then I really don't see as how you have any other options beyond throwing it away anyhow, or else holding on to it indefinitely until or unless you do find somewhere that will take it off your hands and get it out to these special 'collection centers'.... which is pretty inconvenient and unlikely to actually be done by very many.

And just in case this can help you or anyone else, what I personally do with my needles and because I can simply re-cap and then remove the needle from my syringe barrel (no breaking off, cutting etc. Just one more reason I love luer locks), is that I simply throw away the syringe barrel but I then put only the re-capped needles (since they're my own, no reason not too) into my sharps container. The result is that after a year and three months (my dose schedule is fortnightly) I am not even remotely close to it being full and we're talking about a fairly small container here... it is smaller than a full size coffee can. Seriously, I am more likely to use it up faster with my double edged razor blades than I am with my needles. Apparently razor blades command the use of sharps containers almost nation-wide too now, so win-win I guess.

Yeah so... if you do figure out what to do with them other than throwing them away, and proper/legally mandated disposal does cost money where you are and without any free place to turn them over to, this should save a hell of a lot more money than if you were to throw away syringe and needle together. It will probably take me half a decade to fill mine up lol.

Further, and still in the scenario of no proper disposal options, this method also decreases the odds of someone misusing your gear because there won't be any syringe barrels in there with the needles and the likelihood of them finding just the right syringes to work with those needles would be frankly astronomical. Again too, if you re-cap the needle first, that would better circumvent wildlife being inadvertently and negatively impacted if you did have no alternative but to throw them away in the trash. And yeah, I also agree that taping it up first would be good.

My mom is a nurse, so she just takes them and disposes them at her work. She did that when I was on other meds that required injecting. Ask you nurse friend is probably your best bet.

Contact the local recycler and ask about hazardous materials disposal.  Here in Oregon that is where they go.

In my neck of the woods, the city recycling site sends me on a wild goose chase until I finally conclude that the only option is the appointment-only, Saturday-only hazardous waste drop-off at the dump. (There is a fee to recycle other stuff, so I have no doubt that medical waste is the same.)

The web page for that does NOT list medical waste or sharps containers, but the pages that direct me there do. Go figure. Anyway, I highly resent the runaround, and I much prefer to do my business on Fridays, when I am actually out running errands. So I stack up the containers at home and will continue to do so until desperation sets in.

In my state, its legal to put a sharps container in the trash as long as its properly sealed. I dont use a full sharps container with syringe and all, I instead use a needle clipper (http://www.bd.com/us/diabetes/page.aspx?cat=7002&id=7416 (http://www.bd.com/us/diabetes/page.aspx?cat=7002&id=7416)) then once its full I dispose of that by taping it and throwing it in the trash as per my state requirements. Read about your local requirements before attempting to dispose of sharps in the trash, dump, etc as not all states are the same.

Quote from: overdrive on December 30, 2013, 01:38:51 PMI instead use a needle clipper (http://www.bd.com/us/diabetes/page.aspx?cat=7002&id=7416 (http://www.bd.com/us/diabetes/page.aspx?cat=7002&id=7416))

Mind if I ask, are you using a needle within the listed range for the clipper (28 to 31 gauge) or does it clip larger than it says?

Quote from: blink on December 31, 2013, 11:57:25 AM
Mind if I ask, are you using a needle within the listed range for the clipper (28 to 31 gauge) or does it clip larger than it says?

I'm currently using 23g - 1.5 inch long, and it clips through them no problem. One thing I will mention is the length of the needle will require more than one snip otherwise the piece is too long to fit in the storage portion of the clipper, took me a while to figure that one out. So push the needle into the clipper as far as you can then back it out about a cm, then clip. If you accidentally clip a piece too long you can use the next piece of your needle and use it to dig the stuck piece out, kinda tedious but it works. Once you've clipped a couple though you get the idea and wont make that mistake more than once  ;). So if you are using 1.5 in needle, you need to clip it 3x. If you're using a 1 inch needle you need to clip it in 2 pieces. Pretty minor thing IMHO for the luxury of a much much smaller and more convenient sharps container. Easier for airline travel to use one of these as well.

If you live in the USA, they sell these over the counter at Wallmart next to the alcohol wipes for about $4.

Awesome, good to hear the only issue is having to clip in more than one piece, which sounds like no big deal. Thanks for the helpful info.