Southampton City Council fact sheet
Who is this information for?
If you think you are handling clinical waste you should read this information. It will explain the different types of clinical waste and how you can dispose of them.
The council offers a free disposal service for Southampton residents and a contracted disposal service for council run services including schools, leisure facilities and health and social care provision.
Offensive or sanpro waste
‘Offensive’ waste or sanitary products waste is material used to collect body cavity waste; that is urine and faeces. Most offensive waste if properly bagged can be placed in your normal waste bin, provided your waste is collected in a rigid waste bin*.
Examples of offensive (sanpro) waste are:
Incontinence pads
Stoma bags
Urine bags
Where the above is from a healthy person who is not suffering from an infection there is a low risk to the wider community and provided the contents have been emptied into a toilet, the bags or pads can be double bagged and placed in your normal household bin*.
If the above waste is from a person suffering from a secondary infection such as diarrhoea and vomiting then such offensive waste should only be disposed of via a special clinical waste collection (see details below).
Offensive waste can include low risk clinical waste which contains minor quantities of blood, for example plasters and small dressings, which when disposed of can be double bagged and disposed of in the normal household waste bin*.
*Offensive waste can only be placed in your normal household waste if it is placed within two sealed plastic bags and provided you waste is collected in a rigid waste bin, such as a wheelie bin or communal bin. If you do not have access to an external rigid bin then you need to request a special waste collection by the Public Health Services team, (see details below).
How can I use the clinical waste collection service?
Southampton residents will need to be referred by a health care professional (doctor or community nurse) in order to ensure there is a legitimate need for a specialist collection service. Your doctor or community nurse will be familiar with the referral process.
How the collection service works
In order to ensure that potentially infected material is properly disposed of, clinical/infectious waste is collected separately from your normal domestic refuse and incinerated. We employ trained collectors and specially equipped vans to carry out the collections.
Clinical/infectious waste customers are provided with yellow bags to identify it as clinical waste.
Offensive waste customers are provided with a ‘tiger bag’ (black bags with a yellow stripe).
For syringe needles and other similar items ‘sharp boxes’ are provided and when ¾ full are collected upon telephone request.
For domestic customers, the collection is from home on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis, although special arrangements can be made if necessary once a referral has been made.
Charges
The service for domestic customers is free.
Customer care standards
We aim to provide an efficient and courteous service with a minimum delay and of a high standard. In particular we will:
Always respond to your enquiry as soon as possible
Respond to a request for service within 5 working days
How to prepare clinical waste for collection
Clinical/infectious waste should only be put in the yellow bags provided
Offensive waste should be placed in the tiger bags provided
Only clinical/infectious waste and offensive waste should be placed in the respective bags provided
The neck of the bag should be tied securely
The bag should be readily available for collection in the agreed location, but kept separate from your normal domestic refuse collection
Syringe needles and similar items must be placed in the special sharp boxes provided which will be collected upon request
Please do not overfill the bag as this can cause the bag to split, or lead to the waste being refused at the transfer point before incineration. It may also be too heavy for collection staff to carry.
Please do not leave yellow or tiger bags out for collection by the normal domestic refuse collection service
Complying with the law
To ensure we can comply with the law each address that we collect form will have a reference number identifying the source of the bag. In the event of the wrong waste being disposed of in the wrong bag, the customer will be notified in writing and asked to refrain from this practice. We ask that customers co-operate accordingly.
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Last updated: 12 October 2007