Controlled Substances
Disposal

Reliable and simple service solutions for drugs and prescription medications

With safety at the forefront of its solutions, more healthcare facilities are choosing Sharpsmart for customer-focused and cost-effective denaturing and disposal of Controlled Substances.

Hazardous pharmaceuticals and prescription medications require denaturing and specialised containment to comply with the very stringent disposal requirements surrounding hazardous classified waste streams. For retail pharmacies and hospitals, Sharpsmart has developed an affordable and intelligent system for hazardous medicinal waste to ensure correct quantity, size and waste stream container type is utilised to prevent diversion. Sharpsmart will provide expert advice on the most effective collection and transport options to ensure cost minimisation and realise the economic and environmental benefits of lowering the volume and mass of hazardous pharmaceuticals waste collection. In the collection and handling of all hazardous waste streams, we work directly with our customers to review, analyse and streamline their waste contents to ensure compliance.

Under the Controlled Drugs (Supervision of Management & Use) Regulations 2006 drugs must be fully denatured before the resultant mixture is able to be disposed of in a pharmaceutical waste disposal bin, i.e. they are rendered unrecoverable prior to safe disposal. Our denaturing kits provide simple and controlled denaturing of controlled substances. Clear labelling and instructions are provided and solid dose formulations may be disposed without the requirement to crush tablets. The contents of the kit will be broken down and the controlled drugs considered “denatured and destroyed” after approximately 48 hours.

Instructions for Safe Denaturing into a controlled drug destruction kit:

• Solid dose formulations should be removed from blister packaging and plced directly into the container
• Ampoules should be snapped at the neck; ampoules containing liquids can be disposed in the kit, those with powder should be mixed with a small amount of water until contents are dissolved
• Fentanyl patches should have their backing removed and the patch folded over on itself for deposition
• Liquid formulations, small amounts only to be added to the denaturing kit
• Once contents are disposed into the kit, the container should be sealed and shaken for approx 30 seconds until fully mixed.