BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to the destruction of medical waste and more specifically to a sharps container with blackout strip to prevent overfilling of a container portion.

2. Discussion of the Prior Art

The problems associated with the destruction and decontamination of medical waste are well-known. Syringes, plastic blood bags, metal clips, hoses, etc. present formidable problems for disposal. Not only are they difficult to deal with due to safety risks to handlers and health compliance regulations, but also, they are contaminated with viral and bacterial pathogens, which make their handling hazardous. These items must be decontaminated, rendered harmless and disposed of to prevent the transmission of disease, and to avoid accessibility of used needles and syringes, stick injuries, and for purposes of general sanitation.

Devices adapted for the disposal of hospital waste are known. However, they suffer from a number of limitations, such as safety problems, including leaks and other shortcomings, which make them not particularly suitable to institutional applications where relatively unskilled workers are employed as operators. Moreover, since these devices are employed for the disposal of glass, plastic and other implements, the wear and tear on the devices is considerable. The users are generally incapable of keeping the devices in proper ranges and condition as well as within storage and filling requirements to avoid damage. They thus require either the presence of a skilled medical waste handler on staff or frequent calls to a medical waste handler.

Since the advent of the disposal syringe and other disposable medical articles, there has also arisen a need for a method to prevent their misuse and theft. In hospitals today there is a tremendous volume of these articles, which after being used, must be accounted for by some method or another, all of which takes precious time. There is an ever-growing problem with theft of used syringes for illegal intra-venous drug use and/or for drug diversion.

Typically, syringes and needles are simply thrown into sharps containers and stored until the containers are collected by waste processing and disposal personnel of a facility. Storage of whole syringes and needles also pose safety risks for waste disposal collection personnel and stick injuries during collection as often times the containers are overfilled. There exists the possibility of containers breaking and collection personnel accidentally getting stuck with contaminated needles. The United Nations has identified this problem as a world-wide health issue and set guidelines regarding the filling of sharps containers.

A sharps container is attached to a wall and can be found in almost every hospital room, clinic and nursing home as well as public places. Federal and United Nations world-wide guidelines require that a sharps container cannot be filled to more than three quarters of its volume. The sharps container is positioned between a light emitter and a light receiver inside of a cabinet or storage device. The area where sharps container is placed must be cleaned from time to time. The cleaning may change a height of the light emitter and light receiver and depending on container size.

Sharps containers are overfilled because nothing currently stops this from occurring. Containers for 510K clearance from the FDA are to have a fill line for the customers either in the plastic or on the label but no mechanism to stop overfilling. Additionally, it the customer fills to the ¾ line then it requires them to spend more on another container costing more money and for medical waste pickup, which is also an additional cost so really no incentive to not overfill.

A user of the sharp's container may want to cheat and fill the volume of the sharp's container to more than three quarters to save money on containers, disinfection and disposal. Finally, different heights of sharps containers require the light emitter and receiver to be adjusted. If the adjustment is too high, more than three quarters of the sharp's container will be filled.

Accordingly, there is a clearly felt need in the art to provide a sharp's container with blackout strip to prevent overfilling of the sharp's container, due to a light emitter being improperly adjusted or a user wanting to overfill to save costs.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a sharp's container with blackout strip to prevent overfilling of the sharp's container. The sharp's container includes a container portion and a closeable lid. The sharp's container includes any suitable cross-sectional shape having at least one wall. The container portion is fabricated from a light translucent or transparent material, such that any suitable light may be shined through the at least one wall thereof. An upper perimeter of the container portion is treated, such that light will not shine through an upper twenty five percent of the container portion by volume. An opaque tape, an opaque paint, an opaque plastic, an opaque printing ink or any other suitable opaque treatment is preferably applied to the outer perimeter of the container portion to prevent light from passing through the container portion. At least one wall of the container is treated. The opaque treatment could also be applied to an upper inner perimeter of the container portion.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a sharp's container with blackout strip to prevent overfilling of the container portion, due to a light emitter being improperly adjusted, or a user wanting to overfill to save costs.

These and additional objects, advantages, features and benefits of the present invention will become apparent from the following specification.

