How to Safely Dispose of Sharps Used at Home

If you or a family member uses needles at home, it’s important to safely dispose of them to keep infectious waste out of landfills. It also protects waste disposal workers from needlesticks, which require expensive medical testing and can transmit deadly or harmful diseases.

While you can’t throw your sharps in the trash or recycling or put them in medication drop boxes, you can bring them to one of our Sauk Prairie Healthcare locations.

Bringing Your Sharps to Sauk Prairie Healthcare

Sauk Prairie Healthcare is a DNR-registered Sharps Collection site, which means you can bring used needles and lancets to the ER registration desk or one of our primary care clinics in Lodi, Plain, Spring Green and Wisconsin Heights. We’ll ensure they’re disposed of properly. Anyone in the community can drop off their sharps, whether they are a Sauk Prairie Healthcare patient or not.

Prepare your sharps by following these steps:

• Collect your needles or lancets in an approved red sharps box. If you don’t have a box, you can put them in a puncture-resistant container like an empty laundry detergent bottle. (You will be given a new approved box when you bring in a full one)
• Make sure your container is closed and secured before you bring it in. Our staff won’t close or secure the containers.
• Don’t leave medicine in the syringes. Empty the medication into gauze or a tissue and throw it away.