Disposing of used scalpel/knife blades

[Leon]

In my community, we take our refuse to a recycling center where all glass, metal, and plastic is deposited into the same container and compacted. I put my old blades into a plastic milk jug before my weekly trip to the transfer (recycling) center. As others have said, the handling of refuse presumes the inherent risk and procedures are in place to avoid serious injury. In my case, the greatest risk occurs between removing the blades and depositing them into a plastic container.

Leon

[RailGooner]

Definitely over thinking things here!
...

Agreed.

At home, I've been fortunate enough never to have cut myself with hobby knives, scalpel blades, histology blades, needles, etc. that I use in my modelling. I have cut myself on bean cans, broken bottles, broken light bulbs, etc. and the debris has always gone into the recycling or landfill bin as appropriate. And if I knew myself to be suffering from a contagious infection at the time, then the landfill bin would be the appropriate route for that contaminated debris.

At (my recently ex)work, we misused histology blades in the office for opening letters, opening parcels, cutting paper, cutting anything, though fortunately never myself. When I started, used blades were discarded into the waste bin or worse just left lying around. I introduced the strict use of a sharps bin. I did so, because in laboratories in the same building histology blades and other clinical/surgical sharps were being used and contaminated with biological material. Having a casual protocol for the disposal of histology blades in our team, would increase the risk that a member of our team would cause/be victim of, a contamination incident. So better to have the one strict protocol.

So please, unless you're dissecting monkey brains with your modelling sharps (which I'm not really sure you should be doing! ) just throw the damn things in the bin, ideally wash them before putting in the recycling bin.

This has been a public service announcement from the ministry of pragmatism.

[njee20]

In my community, we take our refuse to a recycling center where all glass, metal, and plastic is deposited into the same container and compacted. I put my old blades into a plastic milk jug before my weekly trip to the transfer (recycling) center. As others have said, the handling of refuse presumes the inherent risk and procedures are in place to avoid serious injury. In my case, the greatest risk occurs between removing the blades and depositing them into a plastic container.

In the UK at least, mixing materials like that renders both the milk jug and the blades unrecyclable.

[Bealman]

Yeah, same here. Recycle bin only for glass, plastic and cardboard.

[pape_timmo]

I use a sharps box that got from the old business I worked for, lasts for years. Dispose of it at the local tip.

Cheers, Timmo