My wife has been on home haemodialysis for a few weeks and generally things have gone really well. There have been a few issues with low blood pressure at times and the consultant has been very good and suggested a few options and the issue is gradually under control. An administrative issue we have faced has been problematic, that of collection of medical waste. Each Council has different rules. Satellite nursing staff filled out a form for Council to expedite (Bromley) and the Council would not accept this authority and insisted on a GP’s referral (of course they didn’t notify us of this). The GP’s referral took a couple of weeks to reach the Council and then nothing. Have chased up Council several times. They always promise to ring back but never do. Last Wednesday a private Contracter knocked on our door to collect ‘sharps’ no previous notification. I asked about waste and was told different collection issue. Anyway, we now have six bin liners full of medical waste to collect. I’ve contacted the private company and have been told collection is scheduled for Wednesday. Have had no communication from Council or private company notifying me of this. It has taken numerous phone calls to Satellite unit, Council, private company and three visits to GP to expedite this. Fingers crossed for this Wednesday
Hello Paul, What a dreadful and shoddy response/or lack of from your council. They must surely be familiar with this situation as home dialysis is a quite common. Does your waste product require incineration? as maybe your managing hospital will help. They must have the facilities on site. I appreciate with your backlog it is not easy to move, but future smaller amounts might be ok. Best wishes B
This is shocking! I do hope the collection goes ahead tomorrow and that you can then settle into a regular routine. It’s great that you and your wife are home dialysing and I hope it’s as successful for her as it has been for my husband (little hiccups aside!).
Maureen
Thanks for encouragement and advice. As I say I’m hopeful that contractors will take away rubbish tomorrow. Will let you know. Unfortunately, rubbish bags contain blood lines, etc, so a little concerned at leaving bags outside anyway with foxes, etc
I’ll keep my fingers, toes and eyes crossed for tomorrow! It’s certainly not ideal to have our kind of waste just lying about in bin bags. Do you have a special bin for your medical waste or do you just sit the bags out for collection? We have a bin that’s kept locked and the council collect weekly.
Thanks for your support. We have asked Council for advice about bin particularly if special colour needed and they just don’t reply. Asked the guy collecting sharps and he didn’t know but stressed the waste had to be left in their own yellow bag and any bag not theirs they won’t collect. These are very flimsy. So we are already having to double bag using strong yellow bag supplied by health authority but covering in thin yellow bag supplied by contractor. Waiting to see what happens tomorrow but agree think a proper bin will be necessary
It’s just not joined up, is it? 
and this is what we pay our rates for. General overpaid incompitance .
So true, @Beanbag, though I have to say we are very, very fortunate in Ayrshire!
Follow up re collection of clinical waste. The contractors (Initial Cleaning Services) failed to turn up and collect waste yesterday. Contacted Company who were unable to connect with the right dept but promised I would be updated asap. Just contacted Company again, same result although they stated they would prioritise response. Reading through the Companies adverts on line, I noticed that clinical waste is to be put in a different colour bag and also I should have been provided with a wheelie bin. The respondent said the delivery would be a priority asap. I said could I ensure that they supplied bags and bin as a priority asap I didn’t want them to refuse collection because of wrong colour bags. This is all because Initial have not provided any information about collections, bags or the fact they were now responsible for these issues. 
Flippin’ heck! How hard can it be to keep the relevant people updated?!! I do hope they sort you out with a bin and bags pronto!
Thanks. Just glad I can deal with these issues. Dread to think how difficult it would be for someone on their own
my husband has just started on PD and I contacted our council yesterday by email but havent heard anything back as yet - this is not sounding hopeful- i have a full bag already and as you say it is sitting in the spare bedroom Paul. I wondered if i could take it to the hospital?
Hi @jC1946!
It might be worth checking with your dialysis team or hospital, as they can sometimes advise on disposal or point you in the right direction. Hopefully others here can share what’s worked for them too.
Brogan 
Just reading this thread for the first time, as I am likely going to be HHD in a few months now that my fistula has been formed and healing this week.
Interesting to read about the collection of waste, I thought that would be easier, I’m not sure if I need to contact the local council or the HHD team to chat about this?
Maybe start with the team and seek their advice first and go from there I think.
Thanks to all contributors on this thread, it hasn’t really occurred to me, although I knew I’d have to dispose of it, just presumed it would be straight forward 
I am not familiar with this process, so why not use the toilet and flush ?? Best wishes B
I will have a look to make sure that’s ok, would make sense. I was under the impression from my reading here, that there is a lot of medical waste.
That could just as much be my reading of it as anything else, and it’s perfectly safe to flush the HHD fluid and then medical disposal collection of sharps 
Hi, not sure if my advise will be helpful or a bit late. Peritoneal dialysis gives you chance to be your old self during the day and then connect at night for treatment on machine while you try to sort of sleep. The machine can be noisy and where possible would recommend you put as far away from your bed, tubes allowing. My renal team gave me extensions so I set machine in another room and closed door as much as possible. There are a lot of boxes to store and delivery is a good pallet load that you need to store at home. So do check you have the space. Going away is possible but you won’t travel light with the kit, however machine does have carrycase for this.