Clinical waste: what goes where, and new labels for use

Clinical waste label

We know that when you’re on a job and caring for a patient there’s a lot going on, and sometimes putting all the waste into one bin is an easy way of clearing up.

But making sure we put the right waste into the right bin is really important, because we can be fined if we get it wrong.

Each vehicle should have a clinical and domestic waste bin on; clinical waste should obviously go into the yellow clinical waste bag/bin, but any packaging or wrappers from medical equipment (that isn’t contaminated) should go in the domestic bin. If you’re unsure of what waste should go where, please get in touch with waste@eastamb.nhs.uk and a member of the team will be happy to help you.

As a gentle reminder, our duty locality officer teams are also asked to check the clinical waste identity labels they have saved for use on station. As reported in Need to Know in July, the clinical waste labels that are used on the side of soft-bagged clinical waste and locked sharps bins have changed.

The new labels don’t contain a site identity code, which is a change required by Environment Agency regulations. These new versions can be downloaded by:

  • accessing the public drive, or P:drive on the Trust network
  • going to the ‘Clinical waste labels’ folder
  • downloading the new document for your site, which will contain the newly formatted labels.

 This is a compliance requirement, so please be aware that from 22nd September any waste that doesn’t have a new label on won’t be collected by waste drivers, and that old labels will be removed from stations.

If you have any queries, please contact the team at waste@eastamb.nhs.uk

Published 8th September, 2016

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