Sanitary bins

hi
Recently my employer informed us that food waste no longer can be placed in the canteens bin and any leftovers should be take home. is that legal ? can someone give me answer to that with some gov regulations links plaease thank You
Marius

I would also say, this is the age of recycling. So use some simple procurement specifications to get the value for money. Call companies to bid for your rubbish disposal. Don't assume you have to pay for the service. Your specification may say as an example, paper and glass waste disposal should be a no cost preffered supplier. Also if you can stream enough of your waste, then you may find companies specialising in cheap or free collection. You are in the restaurant business and so might I suggest:

Get tough - Your waste oil should be picked up by your supplier free of charge, or you'll order elsewhere! Food waste for energy could potentially be picked up for next to nothing or nothing. Example of McDonalds powering their vehicles on old chip oil.

Your stationery provider if they don't perform certain services themselves, then ask if they have contacts to provide you; Free collection of printer consumables (Hewlett Packard pays the postage on HP products). Recycle paper, plastics, metal, glass, electrical equipment and lamps.

The more you can stream out of general waste, the cheaper you can operate. Food waste being a priority to remove, where as toners/glass etc can hang around a lot longer if it benefits a lower operating cost. Environmental needs at work these days is fast becoming equal on price to land fill, or cheaper or free depending on the waste stream. But with a bit of inovation, you'll be able to prove caring for the environment will reduce your costs. McDonalds don't do environmentally friendly disposal because it's just good for reputation, they do it because it's cheaper than traditional commercial waste disposal.

Best of luck

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

Hi,

It's been really useful reading through this forum, although I have one burning question! I run two rather small public houses, both more restaurants than pubs. In an attempt to cut costs, I am trying to find out if I'm obliged to use a sanitary removal service. At the moment we have a company called Swisher who come out and empty our sanitary bins that they provide. I also pay for commercial refuse collection, cardboard collection and glass waste collection. My question is could I just put a seperate bin in each cubicle labelled "Sanitary Waste" and empty this myself into the commercial waste bin?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Thank you Susan! I will have a quick chat with the other committee members and may well be in touch. Thanks again!

Where there are employees at a premises, you are obliged to provide means of disposal of feminine hygiene waste. This could range from a pedal bin at the minimum, a disposable sanitary bin or a service contract exchange bin.

The requirement to deal with regular quantities of nappies complicates things, and in a way, the pre-school should perhaps be responsible for covering their own specific costs.

The users of the hall are not employees, but clearly you have a fairly urgent need to provide something.

The best solution for your situation may depend on what collection service you have for the hall waste, how often that is collected, and the quantity of sanitary and nappy waste produced.

I am a member of a preschool committee which uses a building that is also run by a committee. The use of the building is shared between the preschool, Guides, Scouts and some other groups. Until recently staff at the preschool have been putting used nappies in the general waste bins as they are the only bins provided. The hall committee have now advised the preschool that nappies have to be placed in an outside bin, meaning that staff members have to leave the children for these short periods to dispose of nappies. It has also been noted that other users of the hall, ie: Girl Guides have been leaving soiled sanitary dressings in the toilets which are used by the children, which the staff have had to remove themselves at the start of the day! We are not sure where we stand legally in terms of whether the hall committee should provide nappy bins or at very least sanitary bins, as it's not only the Girl Guides that need to dispose of sanitary items but also the staff which are all female and just using the general waste bin does not seem hygenic, especially around small children. Help anyone?!!

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Thanks for the mention Susan,

In general terms ostomy appliances are treated in the same way as soiled nappies, so do not require specific disposal facilities other than an ordinary bin.

If someone needs to change their appliance then they will probably need access to a hand basin as well, so will usually use a designated accessible/disabled toilet which also ensures there is some space.

That said, a lot of patients are also unsure or misguided about disposing of their appliances so please feel free to get in touch - Ostomy Lifestyle also has a Helpline number 0800 7314264 - for any advice on the matter.

Neil

Hi David,

I'd like to recommend that you talk to the help desk/information line at the charity Ostomy Lifestyle. This lottery funded charity provides support, advice and information to anyone affected by surgery on their bowel or bladder.

www.OstomyLifestyle.org

I have just checked with Neil Basil at Ostomy Lifestyle and he definitely be able to help with regard to advice on disposal at a workplace, and also invited him to give a reply on the forum.

Susan

There is a caravan showroom and despatch yard on this site. It has a separate male and female toilet room with a single toilet cubicle and wash basin in each in the showroom for the use of both employees and showroom customers. We have one male worker who has a colostomy. Does anyone know what is the legal and practical position regarding disposal of the colostomy bags by the male worker?

a thread this long for sanitary waste regulations - no wonder there's always work available in the world of HR.

Hi Charlotte,

The correct title for this document is Duty of Care - Waste Transfer Note.

It all depends on your contract whether they can charge you. If they don't have it on the contract I can't see how they can charge it. However you do need to provide one to your waste collector.

You can obtain a waste transfer note blank free of charge from the Environment Agency. Also advice about what it is for. For a recurring service of the same waste, the waste transfer note can last for 12 months.

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/waste/40047.aspx

The waste code that you need if a service contractor is collecting the waste is 20-01-99.

You can ask your sanitary removal company for their waste carrier licence number, or obtain it from the Environment Agency. You can also use the number they provide to check that they have a waste carrier licence.
http://www2.environment-agency.gov.uk/epr/search.asp

Hope that helps.

We are currently have our sanitary waste collected and have recently been charged an extra £50 on top of our yearly invoice for a Duty of Care Certificate. Which we were told we needed to prove we have our wast removed responsibly. Is this correct that our sanitary removal company can recharge us for this?

Speak to your manager or HR (or Health & Safety) person. Use my post and that of Nigel's from yesterday as a basis for discussion. From what you describe the firm are clearly at fault in several respects.

Thankyou for this information. At the work my position was a receptionist it's something I was just made to do, I have had no training what so ever. No risk assessments and I wasn't offered any jabs. Is there anything I can do?

Laura,

If you are working with bodily fluids you should be trained on how to do so safely, for example how to take your gloves off properly so you do not contaminate your hands etc.

I am a volunteer first aider for SJA and this training was compulsory, I was also offered and accepted the hepatitis B vaccine. In terms of age... many of our active first aiders are as young as 14 and they may have seen far worse. But then its voluntary we don't force our first aiders to do anything they don't feel comfortable with.

Laura
Under the Health & Safety at Work Act, your employer has a duty to keep you safe at work, before requesting that you handle this sort of waste, did they give you training on biological hazards and offer you the facility to have your hepatitis Jabs. If not they have deliberately placed you in a position of danger which is illegal.

No law as such, have you had a risk assessment and method statement supplied for this job - as for handling other 'hazardous' waste? Handled correctly with adequate protection this work shouldn't be an issue but I can accept that some would be squeamish at best as regards doing it.

Were you informed that this was one of the duties when you took the job - or was it that they expected you to know that it was? If the latter maybe they hadn't considered your age/lack of experience, and probably being a recent school leaver.

recently at my work place my emploer made me empty a sanitary bin with my hands into a yellow bag and i was just wearing thin blue gloves.. is there any laws against this? i am struggling to find anything. I am 17 and found this very distressing.. can someone help me please?

Risk assessment is largely down to the perceptions of the person performing the assessment and clearly the risks in these situations which involve dignity/decency may be perceived differently by men and women.

Recent research studies in healthcare have demonstrated that psychological distress occurs when people are forced to use mixed toilet and washing facilities in hospitals with lack of visual and auditory privacy. Financial penalties have been imposed by the DOH and structural changes are taking place, backed by the Government, in many hospitals to provide single sex facilities as requested by the public to eliminate this distress.

Violence against women includes rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, and sexual exploitation. It is both a cause and consequence of women’s inequality and can have a devastating impact on individual victims, affecting their mental and physical health, as well as employment and educational opportunities.

• Close to 10,000 women are sexually assaulted and 2,000 women are raped every week. (British Crime Survey 2008)
• At least 32% of children, mostly girls, experience some form of child sexual abuse. (Home Office).

The Coalition Government has recently highlighted in its Equality Strategy that the economic cost of violence against women in the UK is estimated to be £37.6 billion annually.

Risks in these situations, which are traditionally single sex designated areas, are not always about overt abuse. Sexual abuse may be very subtle, perhaps in a glance or gesture which many women are sensitive to from past experiences. Men may also feel uncomfortable in these situations too, but have been socialised to keep quiet or be teased, though many more are coming forward and reporting abuse by both men and women.

CRB checks only tell you that someone has not been caught thus far-many subversive crimes, such as voyeurism inherent in these situations, may go on for many years before they are detected.

A male cleaner was recently caught, in a local department store, using his mobile phone (under the cubicle doors) to take pictures of women and children using toilets! His punishment was community service which will probably not happen. Spare a thought for the women and children involved who may bear the mental scars for life, adversely affecting their relationships etc.

A quick google search reveals other similar incidences, mainly against women/young girls by men, but some men have also accused female cleaners/workers of voyeurism eg in changing rooms while showering, using open urinals etc

Risk assessment needs to make use of common sense and should take account of dignitary harm which, though less easy to observe and measure than a broken limb, may be even more devastating and difficult to heal.

.

At RBS Bank, Houndsditch, the 'Welfare Facilities' are mixed locker rooms with more than 120 lockers, which then lead to two doors, one male, one female, for 3 brick built shower cubicles each sex, the actual lavatories are adjacent. There is some partial nudity at times in that a shirt maybe unbuttoned, socks off etc... At times you can find yourself alone, or with the opposite sex colleague or cleaner. Is it really enough of a problem that this purpose built facility should re-split itself to ensure males and females shall not be able to meet behind a closed door with a view of a locked cubicle door not for their gender?

Why are we threatened at the entrance of the opposite sex in the workplace? I work with government security cleared people with no previous criminal record at present. Are they a safer people than going to an unvetted sector office where possibly men are more likely easier able to prey on women in the office and look to abuse women. I ask, how likely, how often is any of this going to happen in your office. In mine infrequently if at all.

However, our toilet facility at ABN for visitors to ground floor had a swipe card access on it accessibe from the front of house security guard. Because we do not know the particulars of our external visitors.

There are different ways of safeguarding as you can see from my experience of different employers/premises. So the risk assessment process may help decide if a PIR monitor system or any other safeguard is absent, necessary then used.

Andy
I think you will also find there are many relevant cases in the UK. After all it is really only common sense when/if you think about it!

I hate to be picky Denise ,and I do agree generally with what you are saying, but the court you are quoting is "United States District Court, N.D. Illinois" and I really don't think that would be taken as any sort of precedent in a UK court. I could be wrong.