Safe disposal of needles and syringes (sharps)

Under normal circumstances, they will be collected within 1 hour.  You should NOT remove needles or syringes yourself.

Due to the danger of needlestick injuries, needles and syringes should not be disposed of in the refuse collection.  This presents a serious hazard to people collecting or handling the refuse.

Needle (sharps) disposal

Where a person treats themselves in their home, it is their responsibility to dispose of any clinical waste in a responsible way.  This should be by using a sharps bin and taking this to a disposal point. Sharps bins larger than 1 litre will not normally be accepted at participating disposal points.

Sharps bins are plastic containers designed for the safe disposal of hazardous waste. Sharps bins are available on prescription from your doctor.  They can take needles, empty syringes, empty insulin cartridges and lancets.  Some patients use ‘B-D safe clip' devices to remove the needle from the syringe.  This does not need to be done if the needle and syringe are put straight into the sharps bin.

Where patients are prescribed sharps boxes by their GP they can take the full boxes back to their GP for disposal provided the practice is registered with the Environment Agency to accept this waste.

Sharps disposal points

Contact Details

For general information please contact:

Client Services
Wychavon District Council
Telephone: 01386 565018 between 9am and 5pm, Monday - Friday.
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.