General information, not medical, legal or environmental advice. Call Triple Zero (000) in an emergency, or go to the emergency department of your nearest hospital. Each state describes clinical waste for itself: check with your own state’s body, such as NSW Health’s Community Sharps Guidance.

NOTE MW-1 · CONTENTS

What counts as clinical waste

It depends on the state, and on who made the waste: each state’s health department or environment regulator describes it in its own words. NSW Health’s Community Sharps Guidance, for one, describes clinical waste as “Waste resulting from medical, nursing, dental, pharmaceutical, skin penetration or other related clinical activity that has the potential to cause injury, infection or offense.”

Note: MW-1
Contents: Definitions
States: VIC · NSW · WA
Date checked: 8 Oct 2026

Field 01NSW Health definitions

These come from the definitions in NSW Health’s NSW Community Sharps Guidance (December 2023). They are New South Wales guidance, quoted as written.

Clinical waste: The definition above, and then: “It can include waste containing human tissue, body fluids or blood, blood-stained materials or equipment, laboratory specimens and animal tissue.”
Community sharps: “Sharps that are generated by community members through self-administered healthcare or recreation. This includes needles, syringes, lancets and finger prickers used at private residences and in public places that are not placed in a designated sharps container provided by a business, commercial or community service.”
Sharps container: “A container that complies with Australian standards most commonly used in medical settings. Sharps containers in the community can include rigid puncture proof containers often found in households, such as a strong plastic container with a screw top cap.”

The same guidance lists where community sharps come from:

“People who inject drugs including performance and image enhancing drugs.”
“People managing medical conditions that involve self-injection or finger pricking in the home.”
“Livestock and household pets that require vaccinations and medical treatments.”
“People participating in skin penetration activities including home tattooing and cosmetic procedures.”

Field 02EPA Victoria definition

Clinical waste: EPA Victoria: “Clinical waste is waste generated in a clinical or similar setting. It can cause disease or injury and can be offensive to the community.”

Field 03WA code definitions

Clinical waste: Western Australia’s code defines clinical waste as waste that could cause disease, a sharps injury or public offence. Its examples are sharps, human tissue, laboratory and animal waste, and any other relevant waste particular to an establishment.
Related waste: Related waste, the code says, includes cytotoxic, pharmaceutical, chemical and radioactive waste.

Field 04Sharps and sharps waste

NSW EPA · New South Wales

In New South Wales law, a used needle is not always “sharps waste”. Under NSW environment protection law, sharps waste is any waste collected from designated sharps waste containers used in business, commercial or community service work, and the NSW EPA says plainly that not all sharps are classified as sharps waste. It explains that some were left out of the definitions of sharps waste and special waste to keep council-collected rubbish manageable: treating personal-use sharps that are wrongly thrown into that stream as special waste would, it says, add significant complexity and cost for councils. The NSW EPA names two kinds: sharps people inject themselves with at home or in public that do not go into a sharps container supplied by a business or a commercial or community service, and needle and syringe litter picked up by council staff, contractors or other public land managers.

That is why NSW Health’s guidance speaks of “community sharps” rather than sharps waste. What the law requires of sharps waste, and who NSW Health says looks after community sharps, are in clinical waste in New South Wales.

Field 05Home health care waste

Western Australia’s code starts wider than clinical waste. It describes health care waste as all waste from health care establishments, laboratories and research facilities, and says it also takes in waste from minor or scattered sources, such as home-based health care like dialysis and insulin injections. The code covers care given in a facility and through healthcare at home programs.

It notes that more and more health care is now given at home, by a range of facilities and organisations, and that most of the waste from it counts as general waste.

Code guidance · Western Australia

Even so, the code says all domiciliary waste should be kept apart from clinical waste, and bagged and sealed in the home, so it needs less handling afterwards.

State rule · WA Health

For care WA Health gives in the home, the code says any high-risk waste made there, such as contaminated sharps, is to be packed in its colour-coded containers and returned to the health care facility the care came from, for disposal there.

Field 06Cytotoxic waste

Western Australia’s code describes cytotoxic waste as material that is, or may be, contaminated with a cytotoxic drug while cytotoxic therapy is being prepared, transported or given. Its purple containers, and the rules for storing and destroying the waste, are in clinical waste in Western Australia.

In Victoria, waste that comes from or is contaminated with cytotoxics is one of the three kinds EPA Victoria lists as related industrial waste; the whole list is in clinical waste in Victoria.

Field 07Laboratory waste

Western Australia’s code describes laboratory waste as specimens or cultures thrown out in medical, dental or veterinary practice or research. That takes in genetically manipulated material, imported biological material, and anything heavily contaminated by either. The code says it is to be managed under AS/NZS 2243.1, 2243.2 and 2243.3 and AS 2243.4 (Int).

Field 08Other states

Other states and territories

This site holds no official medical waste rules for Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT or the Northern Territory, so it gives none. For those places, check with that state or territory’s own environment regulator or health department.

How each state handles the waste once it is sorted is in clinical waste in Victoria, clinical waste in New South Wales and clinical waste in Western Australia. Advice for people using sharps themselves is in sharps at home. Back to the cover note.