For quite some time, I've been using old vitamin bottles, pill bottles, etc., to store the lancets, blood test strips, etc., I use to check my glucose levels, until they can be disposed of. They are much cheaper, e.g., $0.00, relative, than the sharps containers sold at the drug counters; are more compact; easier to store; and easier to dispose of.
Source: My wife suggested it one day after I had filled a store-bought container, and was lamenting not having gotten a new one.
By w shipman from Owensboro, KY
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Here in Canada, the Safeway grocery chain will provide you with a free sharps container (if they have a pharmacy). These are then returned to the store when full, they hold a lot! if you have access to a Safeway pharmacy it might be worth checking out, that way the sharps are disposed of properly.
You can also call your nearest Medical Waste Company and ask when their public drop off of your expired pills, your lancets and syringes is and they may even give you a free or practically free sharps container. We do that in Casa Grande, AZ at Healthcare Medical Waste Services.
I have many Rx bottles and I saw the price on some sharps containers and I was glad to read about my disposal requirements. As long as they are in a capped container that is hard to open like the safety top containers, they will take them in our regular trash.
I have been using used, washed out half gallon plastic milk jugs for my sharps. They hold quite a bit, and when full I follow my town's recommendation to duct tape it closed (I cover it all over with duct tape to make it more difficult to open) and mark it "sharps" all over the container with a red marker. It is then tossed in the regular trash. There is no doubt about the contents, and the trash here is taken to a place where it is incinerated at a very high temperature, and the steam is used to produce electricity. It feels like a full circle.
In Perth, Western Australia, a lot of local Government Councils (not all, I don't think) provide free Sharps containers and dispose of filled returned containers for insulin requiring diabetics. It might be worth trying your local equivalent.
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