{"id":898939,"date":"2026-10-29T16:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898939\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T16:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T16:46:12","slug":"weight-loss-jab-boom-brings-coventry-needles-warning-for-recyclers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/898939\/","title":{"rendered":"Weight-loss jab boom brings Coventry needles warning for recyclers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The boom in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cm4g1pkwxdqwo\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">injectable weight-loss drugs<\/a>, such as Mounjaro and Wegovy, is leading to more used needles turning up at recycling centres, putting workers at risk of serious injury and infection, bosses say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At a recycling plant in Coventry, I watched staff sorting rubbish on a fast-moving conveyor belt when a crushed yellow sharps container suddenly appeared among the waste.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A resident has put this in a wheelie bin,&#8221; explained supervisor Paul Pagett.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It then gets crushed by the recycling vehicle and then it comes to us open and obviously we&#8217;ve got needles then falling out on to the line putting my guys at risk.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The sharps box should never have been there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Used needles should be disposed of separately through dedicated clinical waste services. Instead, recycling bosses say they are increasingly finding them mixed in with household waste.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There are safe disposal routes for needles but the worst place to put them is in your recycling,&#8221; said Richard Dobbs, managing director of Sherborne Recycling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It ends up in facilities like ours where it will be touched by people and that&#8217;s inherently unsafe.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boom in injectable weight-loss drugs, such as Mounjaro and Wegovy, is leading to more used needles turning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,243],"class_list":["post-898939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}