Product Spotlights
What the different sharps container lid colours mean under UK guidance, how to size a bin for your setting, and the fill and closure rules that keep you compliant.
OMS Clinical Team
Product Specialists
Sharps containers are colour coded by what goes in them, and the colour is not decorative — it determines the disposal route and the treatment the waste receives. Choosing the wrong lid colour is a segregation failure that shows up in a waste audit.
The colour code follows HTM 07-01, the Department of Health guidance on the safe management of healthcare waste.
| Lid colour | Contents | Disposal route |
|---|---|---|
| Orange | Sharps not contaminated with medicinal products | Treatment then disposal |
| Yellow | Sharps contaminated with medicinal products | Incineration |
| Purple | Sharps contaminated with cytotoxic or cytostatic medicines | Incineration at a permitted facility |
| Blue | Medicinal waste including unused medicines | Incineration |
The right size is the one that fills within its safe standing time. An oversized bin in a low-use room sits part-filled for months; an undersized bin in a busy treatment room gets overfilled, which is the single most common sharps finding in inspections.
A sharps bin filled past the line cannot be closed safely — and the person who discovers that is the person emptying it.
Containers should be as close to the point of use as is safe — a sharp carried across a room is a sharp that can injure someone. In settings where children or vulnerable adults are present, use wall brackets to keep containers out of reach without putting them out of easy reach for staff.
Optimised Medical Supplies stocks UN-approved sharps containers from 0.5L to 22L with orange, yellow, purple and blue lids. Order before 4pm for next-day dispatch on stocked lines.
