How to Sort Your Waste

Garbage

Home health-care waste goes in the garbage. Watch our video showing how to dispose of household medical waste.

Always double-bag these home health-care waste items before putting them in your garbage cart or garbage bag for collection:

• casts
• catheters
• colostomy bags
• dialysis waste (e.g. tubing, filters, disposable towels and sheets)
• disposable pads, gowns, gloves, masks and aprons
• gastric and nasal tubs
• IV bags and tubing
• soiled dressing and incontinence products
• sponges

Never put home health-care waste in your recycling or organics cart.

If there’s too much health home-care waste to fit in your garbage, you may be eligible for the Region’s medical waste exemption list. Please call the Region of Peel’s Waste Line at 905-791-9499 (in Caledon toll-free at 905-584-2216) or email wasteinquiry@peelregion.ca to ask how you can be added to the list.

Sharps include:

• auto-injectors
• injection pens
• injectors
• lancets
• needles
• prefilled pens
• syringes

Sharps are a special category of home health-care waste. Always place sharps in a biohazard container for safe, free disposal. Never dispose of sharps in your garbage, organics or recycling.

To safely dispose of sharps:

1. Pick up a free biohazard container from a Peel Community Recycling Centre (CRC)
2. Fill the container
3. Return the filled container to a CRC for safe, free disposal and pick up a new empty container for free.

The Ontario Sharps Collection Program for local pharmacies also provides a similar service for sharps disposal. Visit the Health Products Stewardship Association – Ontario website for more information.

• Video: How to Dispose of Household Medical Waste
• Disposing of needles, prefilled pens, injection pens, auto-injectors
• Disposing of syringes and injectors
• Disposing of lancets