Sharps Container Information

What makes a sharps container suitable?

A suitable sharps container must resist puncture, retain its contents during normal handling and allow waste to be deposited without unnecessary contact with the opening. Healthcare sharps containers are designed with closures that can secure the contents between uses and permanently close the container before removal.

Container capacity should reflect the activity taking place. A vaccination room producing numerous used needles has different requirements from a treatment room generating occasional lancets. The opening also needs to accommodate the intended items without forcing them through or leaving sharp points exposed.

The Health and Safety Executive’s guidance on sharps injuries emphasises disposal at the point of use. Suitable containers should therefore be accessible where procedures take place, rather than requiring staff to carry exposed sharps across a room.

Understanding sharps contamination and container colours

Sharps container disposal depends partly on what has contaminated the sharp. A needle used without medicinal contamination may belong to a different waste stream from one containing residual medicine. Sharps contaminated with cytotoxic or cytostatic medicines require particular consideration because their chemical hazards affect classification and subsequent waste management.

Container lid colours help identify healthcare waste streams, but colour alone is not a sufficient classification method. The actual contents, including any medicinal or chemical contamination, must be considered before deciding which stream is appropriate.

The Environment Agency’s healthcare waste classification guidance distinguishes between non-medicinally contaminated sharps, other medicinally contaminated sharps and those contaminated with cytotoxic or cytostatic medicines.

For a wider explanation of these distinctions, see clinical waste colour coding and cytotoxic and cytostatic waste.

Using and closing sharps containers

Used sharps should enter the appropriate container immediately after the procedure. Needles should not normally be recapped, bent or manipulated before disposal. The HSE identifies these activities as avoidable sources of injury.

A container must remain stable during use and be positioned so that its opening can be reached safely. The temporary closure should be engaged when the container is not being used. Staff also need to recognise the manufacturer’s fill line rather than judging capacity by whether another item might physically fit.

NHS England’s infection prevention guidance specifies disposal at the manufacturer’s fill line and identification of the point of origin, assembly date and disposal date. Once permanently closed, a container should not be reopened to retrieve or rearrange its contents.

What happens after a container is full?

Full containers move from the clinical area into an appropriate waste holding arrangement before collection. They should remain intact, identifiable and separated from incompatible waste streams. A full sharps container is not ordinary bagged clinical waste, and placing it inside a general rubbish bag does not provide an acceptable substitute for proper management.

The practice needs to know where full containers are held, who is responsible for moving them and how replacement containers become available without interrupting treatment activity.

The waste description supplied for collection must reflect the contents and classification. This is especially important where a practice uses several sharps streams, since superficially similar containers may require different subsequent handling.

See sharps waste collection for the collection service subject and medical waste storage for arrangements between use and removal.