Society issues interim practice guidance on hazardous waste
Interim practice guidance on new hazardous waste legislation in England and Wales is now available from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
The storage, movement and disposal of waste is now controlled by the Hazardous
Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2005, effective as from 16 July. The legislation
covers all waste — not just pharmaceutical waste but also items such as
refrigerators, computers and fluorescent light tubes.
The Society has produced two sets of guidance. One is for use by community and
primary care pharmacists and the other is for use in hospital pharmacy.
The guidance is interim in nature because several issues are still to be resolved.
These include matters such as how to dispose of sharps containing cytotoxic drugs
and what happens to Controlled Drugs that have been issued to nursing homes.
(Although Misuse of Drugs legislation allows nursing homes to return CDs to pharmacies,
the waste legislation prevents them from doing so unless the pharmacy has acquired
a waste management licence, which most do not need.)
The Society’s guidance provides specific advice for pharmacists on pharmaceutical
hazardous waste. It covers topics such as waste regulations, duty of care, licensing
and storage of waste, destruction of CDs, “de-blistering”, segregation
of medicines, the definitions of hazardous and non-hazardous waste and colour
coding. It also includes a list of medicines deemed to be hazardous.
The guidance has been produced by the Council’s Practice Committee, working
closely with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and other organisations.
Sue Kilby, the Society’s head of practice, says that although the interim
guidance related to legislation in England and Wales, it will also provide useful
information for those working in Scotland.
The Society’s interim guidance is available from the practice
section of
the Society’s website. Guidance produced by the
PSNC (PJ, 2 July, p6)
can be downloaded from the PSNC website (PDF 160K).
Mrs Kilby added that, because the guidance is interim until certain issues have
been resolved, practising pharmacists should visit the Society and PSNC websites
on an ongoing basis to access updates that will be posted as further information
becomes available.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal