Waste-Watcher's Guide to Safer Horsekeeping
You couldn't do without them--the medical supplies, the fly sprays, the dewormers, the rodent-control products, the pesticides--but sometimes you don't quite know what to do with them, either. The product-warning labels make it perfectly clear that these beneficial horse-care and property-upkeep items can be hazardous in the wrong places, in the wrong recipients, in the wrong amounts. So what do you do with used medical materials, expired drugs, empty pesticide containers and the like? Simply tossing them in with your run-of-the-mill trash can be dangerous to the people and/or animals who may encounter them, as well as to the environment. In some cases, improper hazardous-waste disposal is a violation of the law. For the sake of your family and neighbors, your animals and indigenous wildlife, and your soil and water resources, here's how to be sure that your horse-related hazardous wastes end up where they can do no harm.
Syringe Needles
Risk: "Sharps" is the regulatory term for used hypodermic and intravenous needles, scalpels, lancets and other medical devices that penetrate tissue. Human hospitals and medical facilities must follow strict sharps-disposal rules, developed to protect health-care workers who administer dozens of injections per day in settings with a high risk of contracting diseases from errant needlesticks. Also, to protect sanitation workers from accidental injury, most state and local jurisdictions have laws prohibiting disposal of medical sharps in ordinary household trash.
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In barns where syringes are kept on hand for routine injections, those laws may not always be followed. "People are discarding them into the garbage," says Roberta M. Dwyer, DVM, MS, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky's Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center, who reports having seen needles tossed into open trash barrels and even muck piles at more than one horse show.
"The danger is that they can stick whoever collects the trash," she says, but any person or animal in the area is at risk of a puncture wound. "If the needle was used on a human, you can get hepatitis C, HIV and any number of bacterial infections," Dwyer says, "but even with needles used on horses, there is still a concern of bacterial infection, especially if the needle had been in contact with unclean substances, like manure."
Solution: Though you'll need to check with your county waste system for details of your local sharps policy, most disposal systems are based on the two-step protocol suggested by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
After use, drop the needle into a strong plastic or metal container. Specially designed sharps-disposal containers are available from pharmacies and medical-supply companies, but sturdy plastic bottles, such as bleach or laundry-detergent jugs, are also serviceable. Do not use glass, because it is breakable, or lightweight plastic containers that can be crushed and punctured if dropped or stepped on. Label the container clearly, using words such as "Sharps: Do not recycle," and keep it away from children and animals.
When the container is full, seal the lid with duct tape, and dispose of it according to your local ordinance. Often, the sealed bottle can be put in the regular trash (not the recycling bin). Some jurisdictions require that used sharps be disposed of through the public health department, and you may be required to take your container to a drop-off station for biohazardous waste. Medical and other health-care facilities must have sharps-disposal procedures in place, and your veterinarian or even your physician might be willing to take your needle container for disposal.
Health-care workers are instructed to not recap the needle after use but instead to drop it straight into the disposal container. That policy was developed when the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) discovered in the early 1990s that 25 percent of needlestick injuries occurred while someone was trying to replace the cap on a used needle.
"In hospitals, the sharps container is right by each bed, and the worker can give the injection and drop the needle in two steps away," says Dwyer. The average stable doesn't have a disposal container at every stall, however, and the greater danger comes from holding an exposed needle while working with horses. "If you carry your sharps box with you, then you can just drop the needle in when you're done," Dwyer suggests, "but otherwise, carefully recap it, and carry it out to the disposal container."
Mercury Thermometer
Risk: Mercury, a silvery liquid elemental metal, has long been used in thermometers, sensor switches and various medical instruments because it expands and contracts evenly and consistently when exposed to slight temperature variations. Unfortunately, mercury is also a potent neurotoxin. An acute mercury exposure can cause a range of symptoms including malaise, vomiting, diarrhea, chest pain, pulmonary edema and gastrointestinal hemorrhage, sometimes leading to death; chronic exposure can cause tremors, memory loss, insomnia, emotional instability and depression.
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