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Healthcare Waste

Find needles or other sharp items in a public place? Do not touch them and contact the Council

Our busiest parks, open spaces are cleaned on a daily basis to minimise incidences of any items being found.

Never touch any needle or other suspect item but instead report it to us - call 0115 981 9911 weekdays 8.30am-4.30pm or 0115 981 1143 outside of these times and Council teams will respond.

Types of healthcare waste currently collected

There are two types of healthcare waste, these are classed as offensive or infectious wastes.

Offensive

  • Home generated healthcare waste, arising from patient’s home self treatment, or incontinence wastes that is not infectious can go into your grey bin.
  • The Council offers a separate collection service for infectious wastes only, using an orange bag for dressing coverings and a UN Approved yellow sharps box for used or discarded needles.

Infectious

  • Sharps boxes: Waste that requires specialist treatment/incineration, this type of waste is placed into orange or yellow lidded sharps boxes only.
  • Orange Sack: Waste which arises from home haemodialysis and includes blood products and blood residue or incontinence wastes which are infectious.

We cannot collect cytotoxic or cytostatic medication. This type of medication should be placed into purple lidded sharp boxes, these purple lidded boxes should be returned to your healthcare provider.

If you or a member of your household suffer from incontinence please place that type of waste into your grey bin or if a member of your family has dressings and similar waste, please contact us to arrange for a free collection service. Your District Nurse or healthcare professional will be asked to complete a questionnaire before collections can take place.

We only offer a collection service to domestic properties.

Information about fees and charges.