Offensive Waste Solutions that improve segregation and reduce costs
Sharpsmart’s offensive waste disposal solutions are designed to improve waste segregation and divert recognisable non-infectious
healthcare waste away from carbon-intensive overtreatment.
Reducing costs and improving sustainability.
Offensive Waste Management – Driven by Sustainability
When done correctly, offensive waste management is one of the most cost-effective ways for healthcare facilities to compliantly drive positive sustainability outcomes within healthcare waste. We can help you segregate better.
Understanding what offensive waste is and how to use the waste stream to avoid the overtreatment of waste is crucial for all healthcare organisations. Offensive waste has largely been ignored by traditional waste companies because ultimately, ‘diversion from infectious waste impacts the bottom line’. Sharpsmart has the solutions to help you use the offensive waste stream to achieve the 20-20-60 waste split target.
At Sharpsmart, our passion is restoring the balance of safe and sustainable healthcare waste management, which is why our offensive waste service aims to reduce overall costs and environmental impact for hospitals and care facilities whilst improving segregation.
Request a quote or contact us for more details about our offensive waste management solutions.
How to Dispose of Offensive Waste
Ensuring correct segregation for compliant offensive waste disposal is a critical component of the NHS Clinical Waste Strategy. Compliance with the Healthcare Technical Memorandum HTM 07-01 not only reduces your overall waste costs but also minimises the environmental impact, which can be significant if not managed properly.
Here are detailed steps on how to correctly dispose of offensive waste:
Identify and Segregate
It’s essential to correctly identify offensive waste and segregate it accordingly. It’s the most commonly over-classified waste in the healthcare environment, often incorrectly disposed of in the infectious, orange bag waste stream. Correct segregation involves knowing which waste goes into which bin, this helps determine the appropriate treatment and disposal method required.
Use the Correct Bin
Place all identified offensive waste into the correct bin. Offensive waste bins are lined with a yellow sack with black stripes – also referred to as a tiger sack. You may find these bags inside a rigid bin with a yellow and black colour-coded sticker or label. Sharpsmart’s Bag-to-Bed system can help you introduce and support the offensive waste stream to achieve the highest levels of segregation at the point of generation.
Where Does Offensive Waste Go? Professional Collection Options
Sharpsmart is a certified waste contractor and we use refuse collection vehicles (RCVs) and regularly scheduled pickups to collect your offensive waste in bulk, ensuring it’s transported and treated sustainably at a local outlet with minimal road miles.
What Happens to Offensive Waste? Treatment and Disposal
Wondering what happens to your offensive waste after we collect it?As long as it’s been segregated correctly (which we can help you with), we guarantee 100% diversion from landfill – ALL of your offensive waste will go directly to be converted into energy. We only work with trusted and permitted energy-from-waste facilities to dispose of offensive waste and we’ve completed a duty of care visit with any site we’re partnered with. And considering we treat some clinical waste ourselves, we know what to look for on a duty of care visit.
Environmental Considerations
The successful introduction and support of the offensive waste stream can result in substantial cost savings but it must be done correctly and in compliance with healthcare waste regulations. Mismanagement and bad segregation practices can result in costly non-conformance and the loss of disposal options.
Sharpsmart works closely with clinical staff to help improve segregation at the point of generation with minimal behavioural change, resulting in significant carbon footprint reductions.
How to Handle Clinical Waste with Point-of-Use Segregation
Managing waste safely in the patient environment
Designed as a point-of-use sharps solution, the Sharpsmart AT64 + S14 + Accessmart combo enables dual hands-free disposal with reduced footprint. With infectious waste deposited into the AT64, the co-mounted S14 captures smaller needles and finer syringes in its counter-balanced safety tray. Giving seamless mobility to the movement of waste, this innovative Sharpsmart solution enables clinical staff to move waste in and out of patient environments safely.
Divert 40-70% of your Clinical Waste
As much as 50% of the clinical waste stream in UK hospitals is actually incorrectly segregated general or offensive waste.
The financial implications of general waste being processed through a clinical waste stream is significant, as is the environmental impact. Our Bag to Bedside solution is designed to optimise disposal at point of generation; comprising a range of bespoke containment systems, blended learning tools and an intuitive segregation methodology, the Bag to Bedside system typically results in 40-70% diversion of clinical waste into offensive or recycling waste streams.
What is ‘Working within the four walls’?
“We don’t stand on the sidelines”
Working within the four walls means, we are physically operating within the four walls of your facility; we are identifying safety inhibitors, streamlining processes, facilitating effective dock storage, helping your team segregate better and optimise your waste volumes and costs, training hospital staff, ensuring product and placement are achieving maximum efficiency, partnering to achieve operational success. We don’t stand on the sidelines, when we’re invested, we are 100% committed to you achieving success.
Safety-Designed Medical Waste Systems
Safety isn’t restricted to Sharps Containers
We need to get back to the fact that we’re working in a clinical environment where staff and patient safety should be the number one priority. At Sharpsmart, we have designed all of our containment systems – sharps, cytotoxic, offensive and infectious clinical waste, and pharmaceutical waste, to achieve the highest standard of safety, clinical design and efficiency in the industry. Hands-free access, smart security locks, clean aesthetics, robotic washing process that achieves 100% sanitisation, and clear colour coding for effective segregation. Our staff, our products, and our healthcare waste management solutions are clinically focused to meet the unique needs of healthcare.
Browse Our Clinically Engineered Products
-
80-20 Trends Audit Flyer
Our 80/20 trends audit focuses on the 20% of departments that produce around 80% of your total waste to determine cost savings and sustainability impact reduction opportunities.
-
The Four Walls Brochure
Introducing you to our four walls approach; driving safety and environmental change from WITHIN healthcare.
-
Tiger Striped Offensive Waste Bags
Made for the collection of non-infectious medical waste, classified as ‘offensive’ waste
-
Offensive Waste Bin Label
Designed for application on offensive waste bins. Simple outline of what constitutes offensive waste.
-
The 5 Moments of Waste Disposal Using the Bag-To-Bedside System
Educating users on the five moments of safe waste disposal using the Bag to Bedside system
-
Bag Dispenser
This small compact bag dispenser can be direct-mounted onto the wall for easy retrieval of plastic bags.
-
S14 | Sharpsmart Reusable Sharps Container
14 Litre container for sharps contamined with medicinal and chemical products. Fitted with a counterweighted safety tray and ‘no-hands’ access.
-
S22 | Sharpsmart Container for Non-Medicinal Sharps
22 Litre Sharps container for non-medicinally contaminated sharps, with inbuilt no-hands-access safety tray.
-
S32 | Sharpsmart Reusable Sharps Container
32 Litre reusable container for medicinally contaminated sharps; features an inbuilt counterweighted safety tray.
-
Total Healthcare Waste Partner Flyer
An introduction into how our partnership works, working alongside your current waste contractor.
-
Offensive Bag Dispenser Label
The label outlines what waste is permitted to be disposed of in the offensive waste stream.
-
The Cartsmart
Enabling point-of-use positioning of all Sharpsmart S-Series sharps, cytotoxic and pharmaceutical containers.
-
Glove Box Holder – Small
Holding up to 3 glove boxes, the holder mounts directly onto the Sharpsmart Accessmart trolley for point-of-use access.
-
Top Tray Kit
Fastens to both side mounting points of an Accessmart trolley and holds small procedural items to enable point-of-use care.
-
Verify Waste Identification Flyer
The Verify online waste categorisation platform delivers instant waste identification for point-of-use segregation
-
Waste Segregation Matrix Poster
This educative colour-coded waste matrix outlines correct containers and contents for disposal of all streams of healthcare waste.
“Always there to help…”
The Sharpsmart team are committed to us as a customer and are a pleasure to deal with. I would highly recommend them.
Sandra Fenwick, Waste Officer
Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust
“We’ve seen a 20% waste reduction…”
The introduction of the Bag to Bedside system has not only created a cleaner ward environment and more pleasurable patient experience, it has ensured that we have made significant reductions in both waste treatment costs and clinical waste output. Initial estimates following rollout show that we have diverted close to 50% of orange bag waste to the offensive and domestic waste streams, which has resulted in a 20% reduction in our costs for these waste streams.
Jeff Trevor, Waste Manager
University Hospitals of the North Midlands NHS Trust
“Exceptional Training…”
For a number of years I have had the pleasure of having Sharpsmart as a service provider and throughout the years I have been impressed with their commitment to customer service. We have not only been the recipient of good quality service, our staff have been provided exceptional training by informative and dedicated staff. Our questions and issues are always addressed in a timely manner and the team at Sharpsmart have always gone above and beyond our expectations.
Catherine Lockwood, Manager – Customer Support Services
Joseph Brant Hospital
“Sustainability is Incredible…”
We’ve used Sharpsmart for over four years. The traceable sustainability of the Sharpsmart containers is incredible.
Clare Topping, Energy & Sustainability Manager
Northampton General Hospital
“Vacsmart. Reduces waste…”
We use the Vacsmart system on multiple wards for both clinical and general waste and have found it to be extremely effective in helping to reduce waste volumes across both areas. As well as being environmentally-friendly, the system also helps to reduce waste movements and “portering” time – both of which are invaluable benefits for any healthcare facility.
Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Site Visit and Waste Audit
One of our field based team members would visit your facility to complete an onsite audit and analysis of your historical waste data
Assess your Needs
We would walk your facility to understand your current waste needs, current segregation methodologies, complete an on-site assessment of containers and placement, and identify any areas for significant cost, safety, compliance and segregation improvement.
Clinical Service Proposal
We would submit a tailored service proposal that includes recommended collection systems and waste management methodologies, together with some forecast KPI’s and cost-saving indications by which we will performance-manage our success.
Implementation and Install
Once a contract is agreed, our focus is on implementing your new programme with minimum staff or facility impact. We deliver and install containers and equipment, working closely with maintenance and management staff to ensure all equipment is installed at a safe height and meets all compliance requirements.
Training and Mobilisation
Once equipment has been installed and/or a new containment system has been rolled out in your facility, we ensure that thorough training is carried out across all shifts and to all clinical and portering staff involved in waste disposal and movement. Training is supported by on-site poster education, bin labelling and e-learning.
Service and Continuous Improvement
We agree on waste pickup service frequencies, dock storage requirements and waste zoning, and over the next few months of service we monitor these three parameters to ensure that our forecasts were reflective of the facility’s needs.
Performance Excellence
The day we sign a contract is not the last time you will hear from us! We hold ourselves accountable for ongoing staff training and clinical support, quarterly auditing, reporting and performance assessments to ensure your facility’s waste segregation output and costs are what we agreed when we shook hands.
FAQ’s
Let’s Talk!
Your time is valuable, and we don’t want to play hard to get. You can either phone us directly on the details listed on our contact page, or feel free to fill out this short form and one of our team members will get back to you as quickly as possible.