#10 Infection Prevention & Control: Infectious Waste Insights

What do you know about infectious waste?

Whether it’s a little or a lot, it may be more interesting to ask what don’t you know about it…

?

Welcome to Issue #10 of Waste Matters – our theme for this month is Infection Prevention and Control.

?

What’s in this issue??

We’ve compiled some helpful insights on infectious waste to help you ensure safety and compliance when it comes to waste management. We’ll be looking at:?

·??????? Infectious vs non-infectious waste.

·??????? Identifying infectious waste.

·??????? Disposing of infectious waste.

·??????? And more!

?

Before getting stuck in, please consider joining our Network for Healthcare Heroes – it’s our monthly provision of relevant up-to-date information, free resources, and guidance on all things healthcare waste.

Join our Network for Healthcare Heroes

Infectious Waste Vs Non-Infectious Waste

The beginning is the best place to start, so let’s look at the difference between infectious and non-infectious waste…?

• Infectious Waste: Refers to waste contaminated by harmful pathogens that pose a risk of infection to anyone who comes into contact with it.

?

• Non-Infectious Waste: Refers to regular waste materials like paper, plastic, and general waste that doesn’t carry the risk of spreading infections.

?

Non-infectious waste is suitable for direct disposal, recovery, or recycling and whilst proper management is still important, it doesn’t involve the same level of concern for disease transmission.

A good example of non-infectious waste within the healthcare sector is offensive waste.?

Unsure about what belongs in the offensive waste stream? We have a blog on the subject …

Identifying Infectious Waste

Without testing waste, it’s hard to be certain it’s contaminated with harmful agents, but needless to say, it’s not practical to test every possibly infectious item.

?

However, there are ways to determine the likelihood of it being infectious. Consider if:

• It came from a patient with an infection, or from being in contact with someone carrying a contagious disease.
• It came from a patient displaying infectious symptoms who is yet to be fully diagnosed.
• It came from a patient with a history of a known infection – such as a bloodborne virus or Clostridioides difficile.
• A healthcare provider has confirmed it’s infectious.
• It’s a substance used in lab work containing infectious agents or was in touch with them.

?

If the answer to any of those is “yes”, the waste may be infectious and you should treat it as such.

Download Poster

Disposing of Infectious Waste

Always follow the training you’ve received on how to safely dispose of waste materials in your organisation as there may be procedures in place specific to your facility.

?

There are two options for the correct disposal of infectious waste:?

• If it’s infectious?but doesn’t have any other hazardous properties?– Orange bag
• If it’s infectious?and contaminated with medicines or chemicals?– Yellow bag

?

Within a healthcare setting, nearly all of the infectious waste will be placed in orange bags. Yellow bags are seen more frequently in?laboratory environments. In a hospital, Pathology, Microbiology and other diagnostic labs will need yellow bags to dispose of the chemically contaminated infectious waste they produce.

Download Poster

What’s coming in the next issue?

We hope you found this issue helpful – the theme for our May issue is Compliance and Regulations where we’ll be looking at:?

• The key sections of the HTM 07-01 for healthcare professionals in various roles.

?

We’d welcome any feedback on topics and themes you’d like to see in future issues.

?

If you enjoyed the content in this newsletter, please consider joining our Network for Healthcare Heroes – we expand on content like this in more depth, as well as provide free resources and guidance on all things healthcare waste.

?

Join our Network for Healthcare Heroes