If you use needles, syringes, lancets, auto-injector needles, or other sharps at home, put each one in a sharps container immediately after use.
An FDA-cleared sharps container is your best option.
If you don’t have one, FDA says some communities allow a sturdy household plastic container with specific safety features.
Follow your community’s disposal rules when the container is full.
For Sharps Used at Home
This advice is for patients, family caregivers, and pet owners handling sharps at home.
If you run a clinic, medical office, home-health business, or another professional service, you must follow regulated medical-waste rules instead.
Use the Right Container
Choose a container that resists punctures and leaks, stays upright, and closes with a tight lid that sharps can’t pass through.
Keep it near the place where you give injections, but out of reach of children and pets.
Don’t let the container overfill.
Close it at the marked fill line or whenever the manufacturer says it’s full.
What to Look For in a Sharps Container
Number key: 1 is the tight lid, 2 the marked fill line, 3 the rigid body, and 4 the stable base.
Use the fill line printed on your container and follow its instructions. Don’t rely on one fill percentage for every model.
If your local rules allow a household substitute, use a heavy-duty plastic container such as an empty laundry detergent bottle.
It needs a tight, puncture-resistant lid and must stay upright without leaking.
Label it exactly as your local program requires.
Don’t use thin water or soda bottles, milk jugs, glass jars, or open cans.
What Not to Do
- Don’t put loose sharps in the trash, recycling, a toilet, or a medicine take-back box.
- Don’t bend, break, or remove a needle by hand.
- Don’t recap a needle that someone else used.
- Don’t reach into a sharps container or force anything through a full opening.
- Don’t put the sealed container in household trash unless your community specifically allows it.
Find the Local Disposal Route
Call your local trash or public health department and ask a pharmacist, veterinarian, hospital, or health care provider about nearby programs.
FDA’s consumer guidance also lists Safe Needle Disposal at 1-800-643-1643 for information specific to your state.
Your options may include a supervised collection site, household hazardous waste facility, mail-back program, or special home collection service.
Confirm that the program accepts your container before you go.
Ask which household sharps and containers it takes, whether you need an appointment, and how to seal and label the container.
A site that accepts unused medicine may still refuse needles.
If You Find a Loose Needle
Keep people and pets away from it.
Don’t touch it with bare hands, recap it, or snap it.
Ask the property manager, local public health or sanitation department, or a non-emergency service what to do.
A needle found in a park or street may follow different rules from sharps used in your home.
If a Needlestick Happens
CDC advises washing the area with soap and water and getting medical care right away.
Tell the clinician clearly if the sharp came from another person or you don’t know its source.
Don’t delay care while you try to identify the needle.
Traveling With Sharps
Carry a travel-size sharps container and keep the labels for your medicine and devices with you.
Before you travel, check the rules for your airline, airport, destination, and accommodation.
The disposal rules at your destination may differ from the ones at home.
When the container reaches its fill line, close it and use the local route you confirmed.
The guide to disposing of sharps containers explains more about the container itself.