Especially now that syringes can be purchased without prescriptions, it is especially important to arrange for their safe and proper disposal.
Syringe exchanges provide arrangements for clients to return needles. Even there, the percentage of exchange at best hovers between 70% and 80%. The ratio is even less when syringes are passed out through third party distributors.
Furthermore, it is not in the public interest for people to save used syringes for later return, for fear that someone might accidentally become pricked and contract HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis. In almost all cases, users of syringes want to safely dispose of them.
The proper placement of used syringes is in ‘sharps containers’, designed for that single purpose. Syringes can be dropped in, but they cannot be removed from the hard plastic shell without a key. The containers or their contents are required to be returned separately to a public trash facility, since they are considered toxic waste.
In some cities, sharps containers can be found in restrooms and high drug traffic locations.
A service that Lancaster General Hospital could provide from its bountiful earnings would be to strategically locate sharps containers in the City and Ephrata, and then regularly deliver the needles for proper disposal, along with the hospital’s other toxic materials.
This would significantly reduce the spread of disease and encourage addicts and others to use fresh syringes rather than to re-use and, worst yet, share old ones.
