P-Listed Hazardous Waste
9/3/2019
P-listed waste is otherwise known as “acutely toxic” waste. It consists of unused chemicals that are being discarded. Examples are nicotine patches and warfarin.
In the healthcare sector, this includes medications or unused laboratory chemicals like nitric oxide. To fall into this category, the chemical needs to still be unused and still in the original state it was manufactured in.
These chemicals crop up in the system when they expire, or after patients are discharged. Facilities classified as Small and Medium Quantity Generators are only allowed to have small amounts of these waste chemicals on the premises- less than 2.5 pounds, in fact. If there’s more than this amount, the facility has to comply with state hazardous waste policies governing Large Quantity Generators which are more stringent.
P-listed waste must be stored separately from other waste. For example, if you throw it into a bin with other types of hazardous material, the entire bin becomes classified as “P-listed.” To illustrate, if a handful of expired warfarin tablets are put into a bin containing five pounds of expired insulin, the bin will be said to contain over five pounds of P-listed waste. This exceeds the limits.
The current regulations stipulate:
Keep all P-listed chemicals separately from other hazardous waste
Even packaging from these chemicals is P-listed