Local Medical Waste Bin Removed After Abuse from Facilities

The Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff's Station in California had to put an end to their hazardous waste bin due to community abuse, officials said.

The Sheriff's Station put up a bin to collect the communities hazardous or medical waste, such as “sharps” or needles. However, the program was so popular that it became problematic and became a public health risk, according to Capt. Justin Diez.

The bins were meant for personal disposal, but local medical facilities began taking advantage of the free drop off, said Diez. Facilities began dropping medical waste off at the Station, rather than taking it to a waste-disposal service, attempting to avoid paying for proper and legal disposal of medical waste.

Worse than that, some facilities were bringing in medical waste that was simply collected in trash bags, dropping it at the foot of the collection bin, leaving them close to where citizens would walk by the hazardous waste.

“The bin was right next to the front door of the station and we’re releasing all of our suspects out the front door of the station,” Diez said, explaining the concern. “We’ve got people including children coming in and out of the station at all hours of the day and the biggest problem is that our employee would have to take the sharps that were on the ground, remove the empty needles from them and put them in the bin where they belong.”

Diez added that the intention was to create a nice resource for the community to properly dispose of sharps waste but was quickly being misused and created a hazard.

Now, with the bins removed, the Station put up resources for proper the disposal of medical waste and a sign that reads, “PLEASE DO NT LEAVE SHARPS WASTE HERE.”

Read the full article here.