Clinical waste disposal

Collections of clinical waste are made from properties, using yellow bags, where residents are referred by a doctor or nurse to receive this service.

Very little waste that is generated at home falls into the tightly controlled definition of clinical waste. Only items such as infected dressings, swabs and identifiable human tissue are actually clinical waste. Items such as catheter bags, stoma bags, incontinence pads, syringes which have had their tubing removed and ‘peg’ or stomach feeding equipment are not clinical waste. These are items that have had no contact with infective material, and are classified alongside used disposable nappies and sanitary products as ordinary household waste. They should be collected every other week along with your household bins. Cardboard packaging, aerosol cleaning sprays, and bottles of nutrition for stomach feeding should be disposed of through the blue-lidded recycling bins.

Unwanted medication should always be returned to your doctor or chemist for appropriate disposal. Needles and disposable instrument blades should always be put into a ‘sharps box’ after use.

Collections of clinical waste should be arranged through your healthcare provider. Each request for a clinical collection will be assessed individually in order to determine that we are providing the correct service to you. We will require full contact details for you, as we may need to visit in order to identify an agreed place for your waste to be collected from, and we will contact you regularly to check if anything has changed and that you still need the service. You must tell us if your situation changes.

We reserve the right to remove the clinical collection service at any time if it is not being used correctly.

If you wish to enquire about clinical waste collections from a doctors surgery, school, hospital or other, please visit the commercial clinical and hazardous waste disposal page.