Diabetes med disposal: Are you smart about sharps?

From checking your blood sugar to delivering insulin, there’s a lot to get the hang of when you’re diagnosed with diabetes. One particularly crucial step to consider when dealing with your medications is the disposal of sharps.

Sharps are medical supplies that have a sharp point or blade, like the ones used to get a drop of blood sugar for testing, or the syringe used to deliver your insulin. While these tools are important for helping you, they can also be dangerous to your family, pets, and other members of your household (and community) if they aren’t disposed of properly.

Grab this checklist next time you need to trash any sharp, pointy object related to your diabetes medication. 

Do:

• Check with your local municipality for rules about sharps disposal in your community, as it’s not regulated by the national or state government. You can find out more at safeneedledisposal.org.
• Use a store-bought or homemade sharps container that a needle can’t poke through. We’ll explain this further at the bottom of the article. 
• Put sealed sharps containers in the household trash, not the recycling bin. (Keep a puncture-proof container like a thick baby-wipes box with you to put sharps in while you’re out.)
• Keep your sharps container (and the trash where you disposed of sharps containers) in a high or otherwise unreachable place where kids and pets can’t get to it. Keep the lid closed tight––you might even want to invest in a lock.

Don’t:

• Don’t flush sharps down the toilet.
• Don’t recycle sharps––always put them in a sealed container in a trash bin that kids and pets can’t reach.
• Don’t throw single sharps into the trash, even when you’re not at home. (Keep that puncture-proof container handy.)
• Don’t treat “retractable” or “small” sharps differently; they should be thrown away using the same caution as other sharps.
• Don’t overfill a sharps container. When it’s three-quarters full, wrap the lid with duct tape and label it, “Sharps container. Do not recycle.”

Know Your Sharps Containers 

You can buy a ready-made sharps container at discount department stores and online sellers in varying sizes. An eight-quart container runs roughly 10 dollars.

To save money, opt for a do-it-yourself sharps container. An empty laundry detergent or fabric softener bottle has thick walls and a sturdy, leakproof lid. (Any thick-walled, thick-lidded, leakproof container can work.) Be sure to use a permanent marker to clearly label any DIY sharps container with, “Sharps container. Do not recycle.”