Disposal Colour Codes: Different types of waste are disposed of in unique dustbins or plastic bag colours. The disparity in colour is to prevent pre-exposing the environment to certain harmful wastes.
Some wastes are often sterilized before disposal to prevent any kind of contamination. Therefore, waste disposal colour codes were formulated to ensure the “waste end user does the sorting”. The colour coding helps to differentiate biomedical wastes for effective waste management.
In most cases, hazardous medical waste should be incinerated instead of being disposed of in a landfill where people can easily get access to it. Let’s learn more about the medical waste disposal colour codes.
Waste Disposal Colour Codes
The different waste disposal colour codes help reduce the biomedical wastes that require special treatment, prevent the reuse of certain medical items, and provide opportunities for recycling some medical wastes after proper sterilization.
1. Yellow Hazardous Waste Bag
The yellow waste bags accommodate pathological waste, soiled infected waste, fetuses, amputated parts, placenta, medical waste, clinical lab, sharp materials, and pharmaceutical waste.
2. Red Hazardous Waste Bag
The red hazardous waste bag is appropriate for contaminated waste, human anatomy wastes, semen, saliva tissues, organs, animal corpses, body fluids, urine bags, syringes, used gloves, and blood-contaminated materials. The most hazardous medical wastes are often disposed of in red waste bags.
3. White Hazardous Waste Bags
The white hazardous waste bags are ideal for disposing of dental wastes such as amalgam, gypsum, teeth with fillings, and old dental study moulds.
4. Blue Hazardous Waste Bags
The blue hazardous waste bags are great for storing medical glassware waste. It is appropriate for broken or unbroken glassware, metallic bodies, glass pieces, bottles, and syringes.
5. Black Waste Bags
These bags are used to collect other types of hospital waste such as food, paper, and bottles. Generally, the stuff that can safely be disposed of in landfills.
6. Yellow and Black Striped Waste Bags
They are used to dispose of non-hazardous wastes that are not infectious or irritating to any of the senses. These include diapers, sanitary waste, wipes, and PPEs.
7. Purple Waste Bags
They are appropriate for disposing of cytotoxic and cytostatic wastes. These include any waste gotten from chemotherapy-related drugs, materials like bandages, needles, IV bags, and dressings.
Disposal Colour Code Symbols
The different waste disposal plastic bags and containers are often labelled with some symbols. The symbols are meant to warn people about the sensitivity of the waste.
Therefore, to adhere to international standards, medical centres are supposed to purchase disposal bags or containers with these symbols:
Coding Recommendation(WHO – UNEP/SBC 2005)
| Types Of Waste | Colour Coding – Symbol | Types Of Container |
|---|---|---|
| 0. Household Refuse | Black | Plastic Bag |
| 1. Sharps | Yellow and  | Sharpe Container |
| 2a. Waste entailing a risk of contamination 2b. Anatomical Waste | Yellow and | Plastic bag or container |
| 2c. Infectious Waste | Yellow Marked “Highly Infectious” and | Plastic bag or container which can be autoclaved |
| 3. Chemical and Pharmaceutical waste | Brown marked with a suitable symbol(see Annex 4, chapter 4: labelling of chemicals). E.g : | Plastic bag, container |
Conclusion
Medical wastes need to be segregated in the right disposal plastic bags and containers to protect people, humans, plants, and ecosystems from certain infections.
Proper sanitation and hygiene are essential when it comes to bedding, curtains, sharp objects, specimens, and other things used in medical centres. If contamination happens, it can affect the doctors and even the patients which can lead to infections and disease spread.
Therefore, medical professionals need to be careful when disposing of waste.
