Infectious Waste Disposal
By: Lee Stone

We have several laboratories that generate infectious waste on campus. Infectious waste includes any waste item contaminated with biological agents suspected as being capable of transmitting disease. Infectious waste can be divided into three primary groups. These include:

1. Liquid wastes such as blood, other body fluids, or culture media which is known or suspected to be contaminated with infectious agents.
2. Soft materials such as dressings, bandages, bedding, toweling, etc. that are saturated to the point that they are capable of releasing blood, body fluids, or other potentially infectious materials when handled or compressed.
3. Sharps are objects or instruments that are contaminated with blood, body fluids or other infectious agents which could penetrate the skin or could do so if broken. Examples of sharps waste include:
• glassware
• pipettes (glass and hard plastic)
• hypodermic needles
• scalpel blades
• lancets

If you are a generator of infectious waste, you must ensure that the following steps have been completed before disposal of the waste:

• All infectious wastes must be treated in house in a manner to render it non-infectious and must be labeled in a fashion that clearly indicates that the waste has been effectively treated before disposal. For wastes that have been autoclaved, the use of tape similar to masking tape that develops dark brown or black hash marks or other wording indicating treatment that appears on the tape when exposed to the heat of an autoclave will meet this requirement.
• All infectious waste containers, whether bags or sharps containers, must be effectively closed before they are allowed to leave the lab. The top of bagged waste must be sealed off by means of a bag tie or taped closed to prevent the release of the bag’s contents. Sharps containers must be closed according to the manufacturer’s directions. (Please note that this is a responsibility of the laboratory generating the waste and not that of Building Services Staff).

If the steps above have been followed then Building Services Staff will collect all treated infectious wastes at the point of generation for final disposal.

As a reminder, universal biohazard labels should only be used on items that truly present a potential infection hazard to humans. Biohazard labels should never be used on chemical waste containers as a means of communicating a chemical hazard unless the chemical is known or suspected to be contaminated with a potentially infectious substance. Containers in which infectious agents have been placed into solutions of recognized disinfectants including methanol and ethanol do not need to be labeled with the universal biohazard label.

If infectious waste is not treated, labeled as being treated and sealed before disposal, then Building Services staff will not dispose of the waste. If we do not ensure that all infectious waste has been treated and identified as treated before disposal, we risk losing our ability to dispose of any waste on campus which would be detrimental to our research and campus.