Regulations & Compliance
The UK healthcare waste colour code explained — what orange, yellow, tiger stripe, purple, red and black streams mean, and how to segregate correctly at the point of production.
OMS Clinical Team
Product Specialists
Healthcare waste in the UK is segregated by colour at the point it is produced. The code comes from HTM 07-01, the Department of Health and Social Care guidance on safe management of healthcare waste, and it exists because different streams require fundamentally different treatment — some must be incinerated, some can be treated and landfilled, and mixing them is both a compliance failure and a cost.
| Colour | Stream | Typical contents | Treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orange | Infectious clinical waste | Dressings, swabs, contaminated PPE | Treated then disposed |
| Yellow | Infectious waste for incineration | Waste contaminated with medicines | Incineration |
| Yellow and black (tiger stripe) | Offensive or hygiene waste | Non-infectious incontinence and hygiene waste | Landfill or energy recovery |
| Purple | Cytotoxic and cytostatic | Cytotoxic medicines and contaminated items | Incineration at a permitted facility |
| Red | Anatomical waste | Identifiable body parts, placentas | Incineration |
| Black | Domestic waste | General non-clinical waste | Normal municipal route |
The single most important principle is that waste is separated where it is generated, by the person who generates it. Once streams are mixed, the whole bag must be treated as the most hazardous component it contains — so one glove in the wrong bag can send an entire bag to incineration.
Tiger stripe is for waste that is unpleasant but not infectious — most continence products from residents with no known infection fall here. Many care homes default to orange for everything, which is safe but substantially more expensive, because infectious waste treatment costs considerably more per tonne than offensive waste disposal.
Correct segregation is one of the few compliance improvements that reduces cost rather than adding to it.
Optimised Medical Supplies stocks colour-coded clinical waste bags, sharps containers and bin systems that follow the HTM 07-01 code. Order before 4pm for next-day dispatch on stocked lines.
