What do you put in your sharps box???

[Nadia Robertshaw]

This is probably a very silly question, but I’m curious so going to ask anyway.

What do you put in your sharps box?

Currently, I only put my needles & test strips, and finished insulin pens in mine.

However, I’m debating if I could also put in, my test strip wrappers, along with the wipes I use on my fingers before testing.
Obviously, I’m wondering this because the items in question are still medical waste.

Thanks in advance for you replies.

 

[grovesy]

I would not put wrappers or wipes in.

 

[Northerner]

This is probably a very silly question, but I’m curious so going to ask anyway.

What do you put in your sharps box?

Currently, I only put my needles & test strips, and finished insulin pens in mine.

However, I’m debating if I could also put in, my test strip wrappers, along with the wipes I use on my fingers before testing.
Obviously, I’m wondering this because the items in question are still medical waste.

Thanks in advance for you replies.

I only put my needles and (on the very rare occasions when required) lancets. Everything else goes in ordinary household waste - the sharps bin should just be for sharp stuff 🙂

 

[Jodee]

Just used lancets and test strips - the prescribed test strips are plastic so can't compost them

 

[Ljc]

Just needles and the occasional lancet.

 

[Sally71]

This question comes up a lot! The clue is in the name, it's a sharps box, so only for sharps, i.e. needles and lancets (or for us, the pump filler caps which have a needle in). Anything else can go in household waste. It costs money to have your sharps box collected and destroyed so you don't want to be filling it up with non-sharp waste such as wrappers and insulin pens (just remove the needle). Test strips are safe to go in the normal waste bin, the tip usually has a plastic film over the blood and the amount of blood on it is so tiny that it isn't going to hurt anyone. It's no more dangerous than used plasters and tissues that you might have used to clean yourself up with if you cut your finger while chopping veg for example, and most people just chuck those in the bin without a second thought. Otherwise every household in the country would have to have a biohazard bin, which clearly isn't the case.

Apologies if my answer sounds a bit harsh, it isn't meant to, I'm only trying to be helpful 🙂

 

[Kaylz]

I'm bad I only put my needles in there, I don't put lancets in but only cause I use the drum with 6 needles in and they are covered once used and I've turned it, although there is now mine and my mums contraceptive things going in there now as well every 13 weeks since they changed it to a self administered injection xx

 

[nonethewiser]

Just needles, nowt else.

 

[Nadia Robertshaw]

I’ve recently started self funding the I-Port advance. So once I’ve changed them, I’ll be putting them in my sharps box...as they have a needle at the end.

I also have a pen with a 6 lancet needle in it, so they will be going in too.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

As already stated the clue is in the name 🙂

 

[Nadia Robertshaw]

Yes, but being as I have finger wipes that absorb my blood, and my test strips all come individually wrapped.

I feel they should go in the sharps box because of the nature of what they are. Household waste doesn’t seem appropriate to me for them.

 

[Thebearcametoo]

We just do needles and lancets and if they fit we’ll do the Libre applicator too but the DSN said as long as the needle is properly covered that could go in the general waste. Strips etc all go in the regular bin.

 

[Lucy Honeychurch]

Only sharp things go in my sharps box 😉

 

[Sally71]

Yes, but being as I have finger wipes that absorb my blood, and my test strips all come individually wrapped.

I feel they should go in the sharps box because of the nature of what they are. Household waste doesn’t seem appropriate to me for them.

We have those strips too and they just go in the normal bin, they are not sharp and no more dangerous than anything else with a little bit of blood on it. We have the 6-lancet drums too and just put those in the bin because the sharp bits are fully enclosed and not able to stick into anyone once removed from the lancet device. You could wrap the strips and wipes up in nappy sacks or something similar before you put them in the bin if you wish, if you'd feel more comfortable about it, but they shouldn't go in a sharps bin.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

Yes, but being as I have finger wipes that absorb my blood, and my test strips all come individually wrapped.

I feel they should go in the sharps box because of the nature of what they are. Household waste doesn’t seem appropriate to me for them.

Do you put sanitary towels in your sharps bin?

 

[SB2015]

There is no need to put test strips in the sharps box. They are no more dangerous than a plaster with blood on, and most people with those do not have a sharps bin to put them in. It is only the sharp things that need to go in the sharps bin.

 

[Kaylz]

Was just away to say, what did you do with the likes of plasters and dressings before you had a sharps bin? Hospitals don't put wipes etc in the sharps and neither should we

 

[Kaylz]

We have those strips too and they just go in the normal bin, they are not sharp and no more dangerous than anything else with a little bit of blood on it. We have the 6-lancet drums too and just put those in the bin because the sharp bits are fully enclosed and not able to stick into anyone once removed from the lancet device. You could wrap the strips and wipes up in nappy sacks or something similar before you put them in the bin if you wish, if you'd feel more comfortable about it, but they shouldn't go in a sharps bin.

Glad to see I'm not the only one to throw those lancets in the normal bin lol, I'm pretty good though, I have an old soup pot lined with a nappy bag and put my test strips and lancets in there so just remove the nappy bag and put in my bedroom bin lol xx

 

[Northerner]

Most of the test strips probably end up in your socks/tights or littered around the house in unexpected places if my experience is anything to go by 😱 I do put them in the litter bin to start with though! 😱

If all the test strips that I used
Were laid out tip to toe,
They’d stretch the length of England’s coast
From Kent to Plymouth Ho!

And if those strips were all piled up,
They’d climb into the sky
And form a constant hazard there
To pigeons flying by…!

Consider then, upon each strip
A drop of blood must fall.
There’d be enough, if gathered up
To fill the Albert Hall!

But what about the missing strips,
That give us sleepless nights?
You’ll find them hidden in the feet
Of socks and ladies tights!

How they get there, who can tell?
It’s one of life’s unknowns,
Perhaps transported on the waves
Emitted by our phones?

Or maybe in the quantum world
Where all dimensions meet,
They can’t resist the attractive force
Of diabetic feet! 😱

 

[Matt Cycle]

At diagnosis I was told to put any sharps i.e. syringes and lancets (the syringes were the plastic ones with the tops on and snapped to stop druggies getting hold of them 🙄 ) in an old drinks can and chucked in the normal waste. Did this for years. Only got a sharps bin in the last few years which I put sharps in, nothing else.

Normal household waste is full of rank stuff - nappies and other sanitary items, dogsh*t (for those with dogs), broken things which will have sharp bits, broken glass and god knows what else. It goes off to landfill, is tipped out and a bulldozer with metal studded rollers rolls it out and it's covered in earth. Test strips are the least of any problems. The odd tiny metal spike from a lancet is neither here nor there either with all the other stuff that must be in there. Of course where possible we should try and recycle as much as possible and stop throwing things away.