Sort your waste! An audit on the use of clinical waste bins and its implications

Abstract

This article reports a multicentre quality improvement project on the use of clinical waste bins and aims to raise awareness of the importance of sorting waste. It also makes recommendations for hospital clinical and management staff to improve compliance. An audit on the contents of clinical waste bins at two NHS trusts was performed against hospital guidelines. Eighty clinical waste bins were spot-checked and their visible contents recorded. In total, 347 items were seen in 80 bins; 59% of items were non-clinical, 40% clinical. The results were presented at a medical department meeting and to the hospitals waste management teams with suggestions for improvement. A re-audit on a test ward was then performed. No improvement was seen, with 66% of the waste found to be non-clinical, 31% clinical. Therefore, the aims of this article are to educate clinicians and hospital staff and encourage waste separation to improve compliance on the use of clinical waste bins, resulting in savings in the environmental and fi nancial costs of waste disposal.