TriHaz Solutions Blog

Most people who work within the healthcare industry, whether they are clinical staff or in administrative positions, are aware that red waste bags are specially made to isolate certain types of medical waste. These are waste products that can pose an infection hazard should they be mixed with regular trash that is likely to end up in the local landfill. However, the rules on medical waste disposal can be confusing, and things can get murky when it comes to determining just which waste products belong in these bags and which do not.

Every medical facility administrator knows that medical waste requires proper management to ensure safety of the general population, animals, and the environment. Compliance with local, state, and federal regulations are an important part of the job function.

If you own or manage a funeral home, managing the regulated medical and hazardous waste streams produced by your work can be a complex and confusing process. You are probably quite clear on when your responsibility for that waste begins – the moment it is produced. However, a point that often causes confusion about the funeral home waste disposal process is the question of just where a funeral home’s responsibility ends. You might, quite reasonably, feel that your responsibility has ended when you hand your waste products over to your waste service provider. However, that is not the case. Your responsibility extends well beyond your waste pick-up appointment.

If you manage a veterinary hospital or practice, you probably already know that your workplace is considered a medical/hazardous waste generator. As such, it is subject to many of the same federal and state waste disposal regulations that human healthcare facilities must follow to protect their workers, their patients, the public and the environment from harm. That means that knowing how to properly classify, handle and dispose of the regulated medical/hazardous waste your facility generates is essential to avoiding legal issues. To help you get a handle on proper veterinary waste disposal, we’ve put together some basics on medical/hazardous waste management in the veterinary care setting.

As a manager in a medical office or clinic, you are certainly aware of the risks to your staff posed by medical waste, as well as the OSHA regulations that address that risk. Complying with OSHA’s guidelines for medical waste management in the workplace is essential to minimizing risks to employees, protecting their health and safety. It is also essential to protecting your facility against the legal and financial consequences of compliance mistakes. To make things a bit easier, here are a few important steps to help ensure OSHA medical waste compliance in your workplace.

In this day and age, nearly everyone knows that the hypodermic needles used to give injections belong in sharps containers when it comes time to discard them. That simple fact has become common knowledge over recent years, even among people who are not in the healthcare field. However, what is murkier in the minds of many – even medical professionals, medical office managers and other support staff – is what, besides those needles, should be disposed of in these specialized containers. Here we’ll help clear the confusion by outlining what else should go in sharps containers in order to ensure compliance with medical waste management best practices.

Managing the day-to-day operations of a medical clinic is no walk in the park, as any administrator or office manager knows only too well. There’s lots of moving parts to manage every day, and it’s your job to meld all of them into one, very well-oiled machine. Many of the tasks that make things move along smoothly are delegated to others, but in the end, if there are problems, responsibility for them comes straight back to you.

If you own or manage a tattoo and/or piercing studio, you are certainly aware that it is important to be mindful of the waste that is produced as your artists work with your clients. Many of those waste products are considered health hazards, since they are exposed to blood and other body fluids, and therefore require special handling under state and federal regulations. You are also certainly aware of how confusing those regulations can be. To make things a little easier for you, we’ve put together some tips on safe and compliant waste handling in the average tattoo/piercing parlor.

If you're responsible for dealing with the collection, segregation, labeling, packaging, and disposal of medical waste, it's important that you fully understand Alabama's medical waste disposal regulations. 

Is chemotherapy a medical waste, or is it managed as hazardous waste? Which container and labeling should you use? Proper disposal is one of the biggest day-to-day challenges you face. It's often complicated by other concerns like state and local regulations, HIPAA, and potential litigation exposure.