Healthcare Providers – Others

Hygiene Waste

Who are “Other” Healthcare Providers?

This guide is for people and organisations that are are engaged in  i) Community healthcare ii) Community pharmacies and iii) General Practices iv) Health Centres and v) Dental Practices. The Department of Health – “Health Technical Memorandum 07-01: Safe management of healthcare waste 2013” (DOH 2013 Memorandum) is the guide to the whole area of waste classifications. The DOH 2013 section 1, p.118 states:

Community heathcare can take many forms and occurs in various environments. It includes activities by all healthcare workers who provide services outside the hospital to:

• Patients in their own homes
• Residents of care homes (without nursing care)
• Householders who are self medicating and self caring

 

“Patients in their own homes” includes those living in assisted premises where there is on-sit monitoring of residents’ activities to help ensure their health, safety and well-being. Where there is a provision of healthcare services by NHS and non-NHS healthcare providers (for example group homes), this sector guide applies.

For your organisation, the Department of Health makes things very simple. Sanitary waste is classed as offensive/ hygiene waste.

The Health and Safety Executive in “Managing Offensive/Hygiene Waste” 2009 classifies typical sanitary waste as offensive/hygiene waste and is the product of a healthy population (not known to be infectious). This classification and the rules for disposal are detailed in 4.143 (p.44) of The Department of Health – “Health Technical Memorandum 07-01: Safe management of healthcare waste 2013” (DOH 2013 Memorandum). Offensive/hygiene waste “includes waste previously described as human hygiene waste and sanpro” (4.116, page 40, DOH 2013 Memorandum). The 2013 Memorandum states,

“Offensive/hygiene waste may include
• Incontinence and other waste produced from human hygiene;
• Sanitary waste”

Disposing of the Binny™ sanitary bin and its contents are simple and disposal of hygiene waste is detailed by the DOH in the Memorandum.

 

You can put upto 7kg of hygiene waste in any bin collection in the black bag waste. Once completely full, Binny™ weighs less than 1kg. Less than 1% of all organisations will have more than 7 full Binny’s™ requiring pick up at any one time.

 

Volumes over 7kg should be placed in a tiger bag. Most organisations do not produce this amount of hygiene waste. Collection for these volumes is also simple and we recommend you discuss this with your waste management company regarding the collection of bulk offensive waste as this will still be considerably cheaper than having sanitary waste contracts.

 

You don’t really need to know anymore and your organisation can obtain all of the Binny™ benefits and it is worth noting that NHS Hospital Trusts have switched over to using Binny™ sanitary bins. However, we have provided a short downloadable guide around this area for those of you who want to know more. We would also recommend reading The Department of Health – “Health Technical Memorandum 07-01: Safe management of healthcare waste 2013” (DOH 2013 Memorandum) and also the The Health and Safety Executive “Managing Offensive/Hygiene Waste” 2009.

The Memorandum also provides specific guidance in this area for certain organisations. For example, for General Practices and Health Centres section 24 (p.144) states that these organisations can “assign feminine hygiene wastes from toilets (as well as nappies from otherwise healthy children) into tiger bags as (offensive waste) 20 01 99 waste or if less than 7kgs per collection than can be placed in the municipal black bag.” For pharmacies it states in section 48, “Community pharmacies may produce offensive waste streams including: feminine hygiene wastes from staff or public toilets.” Section 49 continues, “Feminine hygiene wastes from toilets should be placed in a yellow/black receptacle and classified as 20 01 99.” This clearly shows that the Department of Health’s view of feminine hygiene waste is that it is offensive waste (which means you do not need a specialist sanitary bin contractor).

Downloadable Guide