A county-wide campaign is being launched this month to let people know how to safely dispose of medical needles.

The Norfolk Waste Partnership (NWP), made up of representatives from all district councils in Norfolk as well as the county council, is working with NHS Norfolk to promote the safe disposal of medical needles, or sharps, which includes items like insulin injecting pens, syringes, finger prick lancets used to check glucose levels, and adrenalin treatments for severe allergies.

Special boxes need to be used to dispose of needles and safely returned to your GP surgery. You can get these special boxes, called sharps bins, sharps disposal boxes, or sharps containers, from your GP as part of your prescription.

GP surgeries in the NHS Norfolk area run a free collection service for sharps boxes from medical users, so you just need to take the sharps box in to the surgery and they will dispose of the contents.

The partnership will be launching posters and leaflets in GP surgeries to let people know how they can safely dispose of their medical sharps when they have finished with them.

Becky Judge, substance misuse nurse and clinical executive member for NHS Norfolk comments: “This is an important and essential service to have in place, available to everyone who needs it in Norfolk. The boxes are free, which means that people can safely dispose of sharps at no extra cost. We hope that the boxes will reduce the number of instances where needles are thrown away inappropriately in the community.”

As the county’s recycling is hand sorted at the Norfolk Environmental Waste Services (NEWS) plant in Costessey, it is especially important here in Norfolk to dispose of needles safely, to avoid injury to staff working there. In 2008 the plant identified 1,350 used sharps among the recycling being sorted, with the number over the last three years increasing significantly from 315 in 2006.

Steve Jenkins, local authority contracts manager at NEWS, said: “It’s not nice for the guys working here when they see needles coming along the line.

“We have had a couple of incidents where people have been injured due to sharps in the recycling and it’s a year long wait to get the all clear from some of the blood borne diseases that can be picked up, which isn’t nice for anyone involved.”

NWP has also been working closely with the Norfolk Needle Exchange Scheme to make sure all sharps users are targeted through the campaign.

NHS Norfolk, working in partnership with the Norfolk Drug and Alcohol Partnership Needle Exchange Scheme, provide needles and sharps bins via community pharmacies for injecting drug mis-users. In addition, individuals are encouraged to return all used bins to the pharmacy. The service is available anonymously, confidentially and free of charge.

Paul Brierley, needle exchange coordinator for Norfolk, said: “We would urge all users of Norfolk’s N-DAP Needle Exchange Scheme to return used sharps in the bins provided in the exchange packs to any of the participating pharmacies or specialist drug treatment agencies. Any outlet which provides clean needles to injecting drug users will also be happy to collect the returns for safe disposal.”

Councillor Barry Coleman, chair of the NWP, said: “This campaign has to reach everyone that needs this information. “The partnership members have been working closely with a number of organisations to make sure that the message is clear about how dangerous it is to put sharps in your recycling bin, and what people can do to make disposing of needles much safer.”

The campaign will also be running in the Great Yarmouth Borough Council area, supported by NHS Great Yarmouth and Waveney.

For more information on how to safely dispose of your medical sharps, please call the

NHS Norfolk Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS) on 0800 587 4132

Note to editors: GP surgeries do not collect sharps from substance mis-users – this service is provided through the Needle Exchange Scheme, and is essential to differentiate.