Documents & codes
What is clinical waste?
Clinical waste is waste from healthcare and similar activities that may pose a risk of infection or contains medicines or sharps. It is segregated at source and handled under its own arrangements.
Segregation at the point of production is the whole method. Once infectious waste has been mixed with general waste, everything in the container has to be treated as the higher category, at the higher cost.
The colour-coded container scheme used across healthcare exists to make that segregation a visual decision rather than a recalled rule, which is the only way it survives a busy ward or a domiciliary visit.
Sharps carry a separate risk to the people who handle the waste downstream, which is why they have their own rigid containers and their own rules about filling them.
What goes wrong in practice
- Segregation decided at the bin rather than at the point of use.
- Sharps containers overfilled past their line.
- Offensive waste treated as infectious, which is safe but expensive, or the reverse, which is not safe.