Sandiegocounty.gov

With millions of people, sick with insulin dependent diabetes and users of other self injectable medication in the U.S., where do they dispose of all of those contaminated needles?
Do these contaminated needles get washed out of garbage dumps and on to our beaches, or left in trash cans to puncture the hands of garbage collectors, or are they contaminating our drinking water?
Wherever these contaminated needles do end up, they do not go to the same place as contaminated needles that are used to treat patients in hospitals and clinics.
I know for a fact that the County of San Diego does not allow sharps containers designated for hospital patient use, to be used for disposal of employees' personal medical waste. I work at a County of San Diego hospital and am told to throw my personal, contaminated needles into the trash.
The pharmacies that dispense the needles and syringes, are not forced to be responsible for where the contaminated waste ends up and do not collect used needles.
On the Counties' of San Diego website, there is a list of places where the used medical waste can be dropped off, if someone desires to inconvenience themselves to schedule appointments and are able to make their way to the designated dump sites.
I am sure that people are doing this.
The County suggests places like Lakeside Sheriff's Station ******* Parkside Drive Lakeside, CA ******* to drop off the medical waste. If, that is, you can get past the non-inviting, 6 foot tall always locked security gate, surrounding all of the station grounds. Perhaps Lakeside, CA sheriffs are afraid of being robbed. The County of San Diego's web page (https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/dpw/recycling/hhw/chd_hhw_sharps.html) also recommends sending your biohazardous waste to Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) facilities. But I do not think that bio-hazardous waste qualifies as used motor oil or unused paint (https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/dpw/recycling/hhw/chd_hhwfacilities.html). The County of San Diego recommends sending your contaminated needles to Med-Project (https://med-project.org/). But don't all of those doctors, working for the County, know that unused medication is not the same as bio-hazardous waste?
So what can I do? What can you do?
As long as parties that are responsible for our safety, refuse to take needed action, I guess that I will simply have to do what a supervisor, at a County of San Diego hospital, advised me to do. He said that he is also an insulin dependent diabetic and he just puts all of his needles and syringes into a used, empty, 1 ⁄ 2 gallon milk container, closes the lid tight and puts it in the trash. And that is what I should also do.