Guthrie County Hospital & Clinics offers a sharps container exchange program funded by the GCH Foundation. There is currently a shortage of sharps containers due to a fire at a resin manufacturing plant. This will impact our inventory of all sharps containers. We will continue to issue containers until our supply is depleted. If you participate in this program, please begin planning ahead should our supply be depleted.
Alternative Sharps Disposal Containers
If an FDA-approved sharps container is not available, place used sharps in a heavy-duty plastic container.
Household containers that will be used to collect and dispose of used sharps should have the basic features of an approved sharps disposal container described below.
All sharps disposal containers should be:
- made of a heavy-duty plastic;
- able to close with a tight-fitting, puncture-resistant lid, without sharps being able to come out;
- upright and stable during use;
- leak-resistant; and
- properly labeled to warn of hazardous waste inside the container.
When your sharps disposal container is about three-quarters (3/4) full, bring it back to Guthrie County Hospital and we will dispose of it for you.
Never dispose of loose needles and other sharps in trash cans or recycling bins, and never flush them down the toilet.
Resources:
- Safely Using Sharps (Needles and Syringes) at Home, at Work and on Travel | FDA
- https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/consumer-products/safely-using-sharps-needles-and-syringes-home-work-and-travel
- FDA-Cleared Sharps Containers – Safe Needle Disposal
- https://safeneedledisposal.org/sharps-management/fda-cleared-sharps-containers/