Redbridge i

Create an account

A free account on Redbridge i lets you get alerts about Council tax, Planning, Bin collections and much more...

Home Medical clinical (needles...)

Do it online

Contact us

Clinical (medical) waste can be collected by the Council from either a domestic property or a business. Medical waste has to be disposed of in a certain way. Once we have collected your waste it is usually incinerated.

Order a collection or extra containers and bags

Please contact the Contact Centre on 020 8554 5000. This is a free service for domestic residents. Business residents maybe charged. The price depends on how much waste you have to dispose of.

Clinical Waste bags

When using clinical waste bags, make sure that you never fill the bags more than two thirds full. You should never put any household or non clinical waste in there as it is very expensive to incinerate medical waste and these items only add to the cost.

You must tie the bags before they can be collected. Store your bags in a secure, dry place away from children and animals before collection.

The following items can be placed in a yellow clinical waste bag

wound dressings
swabs
incontinence pads
stoma bags (must be emptied into the toilet before placing in the clinical bag)
items used to dispose or urine, faeces and other bodily secretions and excretions.

Due to the nature of clinical bags you should never put anything sharp in there. These items are to be put in the 'Sharps container'.

Sharps container (box)

A sharps container is usually a yellow box with a yellow lid. You can put the following items in this container:

syringe needles
sharps
broken glass
any other sharp item

Please ensure that the box's closure device is locked shut prior to collection. Store your box(s) in a secure, dry place away from children and animals before collection.

What if the sharps container has a different colour lid?

Sometimes you may have got your box from somewhere other than the Council and it has a different colour lid. Different colour lids mean different things. We only deal with yellow lids, so if it is a different colour then you will need to return it to the place that you got it.

What happens next?

After we have got your details we will let you know when we will collect your bags/containers. Depending on your needs we will arrange either a scheduled or occasional collection.

When we speak to you on the phone we will organise how best to collect it. Whatever we collect we will replace. For example, if you leave two boxes and three bags with medical waste we will replace it with two new boxes and three new bags.

Share this page: Was this page helpful?