Medical facilities of all kinds produce waste. Often, this waste can harm someone if these facilities do not dispose of it properly. The facilities typically understand this. They will have a company or entity with which they have a contract that comes to collect the medical waste that the facility produces. 

Medical facilities must comply with waste disposal regulations, and they’re often quite strict. That’s understandable, though. If any facility failed to dispose of this type of waste properly, and it harmed someone, the facility might have to deal with a public outcry.

In this article, we’ll talk about some of the types of facilities that produce medical waste and that must comply with the regulations accompanying its production.

A Clinic

If you live in a community that seldom has a lot of money for medical care, then you might go to a clinic if you need treatment urgently. These clinics often have either private or government funding. You might go there if you don’t have health insurance. 

As you might expect, clinics produce a good amount of medical waste. Since they deliver inoculations to both children and adults, they produce sharps. The clinic staff members will put these used needles and other sharp objects in specially marked containers until such time as the company that services the clinic can come to collect them. 

The clinic might also have additional medical waste that it produces over the course of a typical day, including used vials that contained medication, bandages, etc. The clinic must get rid of all of that according to the regulations governing such things. 

A Hospital

Hospitals and emergency rooms also need to get rid of their daily medical waste. They produce sharps, and they will also have used bandages and containers that held medications.

They might also have surgical specimens or body parts removed during surgery. The hospital will need to store those on the premises with the greatest of care until such time as the company with which they have a contract can come to remove them. Usually, they will come once per day, since the hospital will not want those body parts lying around for any longer than necessary.  

An Urgency Care Facility

Urgent care facilities serve as places where individuals can go when they need immediate care, but they probably do not need to access a hospital emergency room. Like the other medical facilities on this list, you can expect them to accumulate bloody bandages, sharps, and similar items over the course of each day they’re operational. 

A Private Doctor’s Office

A private doctor’s office will usually not do surgeries, so you would not expect to see body parts or surgical specimens. However, a doctor’s office will likely accumulate bloody bandages, tissues, wraps, needles, and syringes. 

Like the others on this list, a private doctor’s office will have marked containers where they will place all of these items. A company will probably come once per day to switch out the full containers for empty ones. 

A Medical Testing Facility

Medical testing facilities will have a long list of items that they will collect over the course of a day that they will need to dispose of properly. They might have things like needles and syringes, but they may also have animal carcasses if they are testing drugs on mice, rats, guinea pigs, or even larger animals like dogs, cats, pigs, or monkeys.

In other testing facilities, you might have chemicals that go into the making of experimental drugs. They would fall into the rather broad category of medical waste as well. 

Any of these facilities will produce medical waste of various types as a large part of their day-to-day operations. They might have a contract with a local company with a license to handle and dispose of such waste, or they may have a contract with a national chain instead if that is more cost-effective.

All of these facilities receive oversight by governing bodies. Such regulatory agencies must make sure that any medical building complies with regulations put in place to keep citizens from contacting any of the items we mentioned. 

If the proper storage and disposal of medical waste doesn’t occur, then someone might come in contact with a sharp or some other item and become sick or injure themselves. That will usually bring about a lawsuit, so any medical facility will take storage and disposal of their trash very seriously.