Needles and Sharps Alternative ways to recycle Illegal in Garbage, Recycling & Drains Hazardous Waste Never put needles and sharps in a recycling or landfill container! How to Handle Sharps Safely and Legally Sharps should be transported in an approved red sharps container, obtained from a physician, pharmacy or Napa County Public Health. Sharps transported in plastic bags, paper bags or other non-puncture resistant containers will be refused for collection. Immediately after use, place sharps in the container point down. Do not attempt to bend or break the needle or syringe. Do not put the cap back on the needle. Keep all sharps and disposal containers out of reach of children. Approved Disposal Methods Personal Physician: Contact your medical provider. They may accept your sharps as a courtesy to you. Free Sharps Collection Locations: Hazardous Waste Collection Facility889A Devlin Road, American Canyon | Friday & Saturday 9am – 4pm Napa County Public Health2751 Napa Valley Corporate Drive, Building B – Public Health Immunization Clinic(707) 253-4270 | Monday – Friday, 1pm – 5pm OLE Health1141 Pear Tree Lane, Napa | (707) 254-17701222-A Pine St, St. Helena | (707) 963-0931911 Washington St, Calistoga | (707) 709-2308 Clover Flat Landfill4380 Silverado Trail, Calistoga | (707) 963-7988 It is against the law to leave any material at these locations after hours. Need a container? Napa County provides personal size sharps containers at Napa County Public Health, the Ole Health locations, the Household Hazardous Waste Facility, and other pharmacy locations in Napa County. Please contact the sites for details. Do Not Recap Do not put needle caps back on needles to avoid injuring yourself from needle pricks. Never Throw Away Do not throw needles or sharps in the trash in order to protect sanitation workers, trash haulers, friends and family from needle pricks. Needle pricks put them at risk of infection and injury. Use Only Sharps Containers for Disposal To dispose of needles and sharps, place them in sharps containers and bring them to a designated sharps disposal facility. What Is Considered a Sharp? All of the following must be disposed of as sharps waste: hypodermic needles, pen needles, intravenous needles, lancets and other devices that are used to break the skin of people and animals. Alternative Ways to Recycle Mail-Back Programs for Injectable Pharmaceuticals Mail used sharps and pens back to the manufacturer of injectable pharmaceuticals. The following manufacturers accept sharps waste generated from their products: Cimzia® (UCB), Enbrel® (Amgen), Humera® (AbbVie), Neulasta® (Amgen), Novo Nordisk, Orencia® (Bristol-Myers) and Simponi® (Janssen Biotech, Inc.). Stericycle® Mail Service for Home Sharps Stericycle runs a sharps container mail-back service for small quantity generators of waste. They include bar-coded waste shipping containers, prepaid and pre-addressed shipping labels and prepaid disposal and tracking. Find out more. Republic Services Mail-Back Service Republic Services offers a mail-back service for managing home-generated medical waste. Find out more. MedPro Mail-Back Disposal MedPro offers various sizes of mail-back sharps disposal systems, starting with 1.2 gallon containers. All containers are mailed to recipients via USPS with a prepaid return slip and proof of destruction manifest. Find out more. GRP Mail-Back Sharps Container GRP and Associates offer a mail-back sharps disposal service. They will mail you a sharps container, which you package and mail-back to them. Find out more. Ways to Reduce Return Unused Sharps to a Needle Exchange Program Instead of dropping off unopened sharps at a disposal facility, consider taking them to a needle exchange program, such as MedShare. Find the nearest program. Did You Know? How Sharps Affect Sanitation Workers Disposing of sharps isn’t always convenient. At the same time, sharps in the trash and recycling pose a huge health risk to sanitation workers. If workers come across a needle hidden in trash, they can get struck and have to wait up to a year to know if they’ve contracted a blood-borne virus, such as hepatitis B.
