Posted By Suzanne Wade Hi I have been asked to look into the disposal of soiled waste in an independent living environment. Someone is telling us that staff cannot put soiled (continence) waste into the house bin and it must be put outside. Is this legislation anywhere as I can't find it anywhere. Thanks for your help!

Posted By Ian Blenkharn It is an entirely reasonable and pragmatic solution to use the domestic refuse stream for small and occasional amounts, and providing it is properly wrapped to prevent leakage and exposure of waste handlers. Larger or more regular amounts may need to be managed as offensive (sanitary) waste and collected separately. Your local Environment Agency office will advise but do ask them to justify their advice and cross-check that advice against a licensed waste disposal contractor, and vice versa. You might also check with the existing waste contractor - if you are a commercial undertaking your waste may be collected by a contractor, or by the Local Authority acting under entirely different terms from their regular domestic collection services. In either case they should be happy to overlook an occasional suitably wrapped small volume of sanitary waste but would insist on separate collection of larger amounts especially if this was a predictably regular arising from a large number of patients/residents

Posted By Ian Blenkharn Feel free to put sanpro waste in the black bag waste stream as martinw encourages you to do, but if you are producing more than an occasional volume and are a commercial or similar organisation, be prepared for trouble

Posted By martinw Suzanne - this should give you what you need. http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/waste22.pdf Martin