Disposing of test strips and lancets

Hi Maybird. I just throw my test strips in with the general rubbish. I'm sure the council should be able to provide a sharps bin for you if you call them and explain. Let us know how you get on and best wishes with everything!


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Not sure if all Council's are the same but where I live they will provide one for you free of charge. Can't hurt to give them a call.


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I get a sharps box but then I am prescribed a limited number of strips. I was wondering what would happen if you asked for a sharps box at your surgery. They won't pay for strips but surely they can afford a box.

I have had sharps bins prescribed by my doctor but it was only after I asked for one as I had been going for years without one. As they cost under £3 for the size I use so I dont mind buying one every now and then from the local chemist. I went for years without a proper bin after being told by a diabetes nurse to seal the used needles into an old coffee jar and throw them in the rubbish bin but I think that isn't quite the thing to do these days. As an alternative to a sharps bin there's a thing that costs just under £3 and is called a BD Safe Clip which is a small thing about the size of a small stapler, in fact, that's what it looks like, and you open it and poke the needle into a little hole in the side and close it up and it cuts the needle off, leaving a very tiny little bit on the end. The needle tip is inside the clip which holds about 1000 tips and can be thrown in with the general rubbish when it's full. You can then either put the main part of the cut off needle into a sharps bin or put the inner cap on it and throw it in the bin but knowing the H&S regulations you're probaby not allowed to do that either. Depending on if I think about it, I either put the test strip into the sharps bin or the kitchen bin but that's probaby wrong as well.

As for disposing of the sharps bin, my doctor's surgery doesn't do it any more and you have to ring a special number at the Council to get them to pick it up but the easiest thing for me is to take it to the local Lloyds Pharmacy and they will dispose of it so if you have a branch nearby you could see if they do the same service.

I'm in Australia... my diabetes team told me that plastic milk/juice bottles were fine as long as the lids were screwed on. My local pharmacy was happy to take them but then I discovered a big sharps bin at the local hospital and I use that now.

I get sharps bins from my GP surgery, a large one for at home and a small one for when I'm away for a few days. When they are full the receptionists swap them for me.

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i found that lancets & strips fitted nicely into old strip tubs for day to day disposal, transferred to the sharps bin at convenient points.

I'm sure there are rules about putting strips into the general rubbish, because they contain traces of blood. A sharps bin is you answer. Try the Council, your GP and the local pharmacy.
Hana

I've never been issued with a sharps bin no matter what GP I have been registered with. Not sure what they think I do with pen needles etc but they have never asked so I haven't either.

I just throw my used teststrips, and pump stuff in the household rubbish bag but I do make sure that used pen needles are put back into the plastic pen needle housing and just bend the tip over with a biro so that no one gets pricked.

You'd put a used plaster in the bin, a used test strip has less blood on it, so in the bin it goes. I've got a sharps bin but it got full and I never got it replaced. My lancets have little 'hats' on them, so they aren't dangerous. My OH works in a hospital and can get rid of sharps there, but I'm thinking of putting them in a 4 pint milk bottle and putting them in the non recycling bin.

My friends husband works on the rubbish lorry and twice he has been stabbed by a used needle, he did not know what health condition the user had and had a very worrying wait to get blood results back for HIV, hepatitis and various other blood borne diseases. Many of his friends have gone through the same.
A blood coated plaster will not go through gloves but lancets and needles can and these guys can't know that your diabetic.

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I wasn't talking about needles (being a Type 2 on oral meds). The attached pic is what I am considering putting in a sealed milk bottle and putting in the bin. At the moment I am just collecting them before I decide what to do.

A test strip actually poses less of a cross-contamination risk than the used plaster, dirty nappy, blooded tissue from the bleeding nose or cuts, female sanitary items... Yet everybody doesn't bat an eyelid throwing these items in their rubbish bin but make a song and dance about the less dangerous test strip.

Lancets, ensuring that the lid is back on and put in another container is fine to throw into your household waste..

Needles can be clipped with a 'clipper' then thrown in the bin, once the clipper is full this can also go in the bin..

In the old days, we just used to put our used syringes and lancets in an tin drinks can, tape over with a bit of parcel tape and throw in the bin...

:thumbup: I keep all my test strips in empty pots(strip pots) as at the end they are thinly coated with gold and I test a bit,so in about 2 years it would be quite a lot,not a fortune but many a mickle muckle etc.

Hi all! This is all new to me and have been asked by the diabetes nurse to take a reading at least 4 times a day and after a month, have amassed quite a lot! Hesitant about throwing the lancets and test strips in the bin, (not only because of the needles, but so they don't end up in the ocean) I've been saving them in this little container. Can I take this to the surgery and dispose of them in their sharps container? Thanks!

lunalinna said:

Hi all! This is all new to me and have been asked by the diabetes nurse to take a reading at least 4 times a day and after a month, have amassed quite a lot! Hesitant about throwing the lancets and test strips in the bin, (not only because of the needles, but so they don't end up in the ocean) I've been saving them in this little container. Can I take this to the surgery and dispose of them in their sharps container? Thanks!

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Give your surgery a call and ask them if you can take them into them

hanadr said:

I'm sure there are rules about putting strips into the general rubbish, because they contain traces of blood. A sharps bin is you answer. Try the Council, your GP and the local pharmacy.
Hana

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No there aren't any rules, same as there aren't for plasters or similar. the trace of blood is actually tiny compared to sanitary towels etc

You don't need to change the lancelet that often either, mine is lucky to be done once a month