NYS Safe Sharps Collection Program

There are many individuals with serious health conditions who manage their care at home and use syringes. For example, people with diabetes use syringes to inject their own insulin and use lancets every day to test their blood glucose. In addition, people who use drugs also need to dispose of used syringes and needles.

Safe disposal of sharps is critically important to optimize health, safety and protection of the environment and the community. The best way to ensure that people are protected from potential injury or disease transmission of blood borne diseases due to needle sticks is to follow established guidelines for the proper containment of “sharps” syringes, needles and lancets and other safer disposal practices.

Three methods of disposing syringes and other sharps collection sites exist across New York State.

All hospitals and nursing homes in New York State are mandated by law to accept home-generated sharps as a free, community service through their sharps collection programs.

  • Locate a hospital in your region. Go to NYS Health Profiles to search by region or county.
  • Locate a nursing home in your region. Go to NYS Health Profiles to search by region or county.
    • Call first: Ask to speak with the facility's sharps coordinator for hours of operation, directions, drop-off sites, etc.
    • Nursing home not accepting household sharps? Nursing Home Complaint Form
  • For more information, call the facility's main phone number and ask to be connected to their Sharps Coordinator.

In addition, pharmacies, health clinics, community-based organizations, mobile van programs, public transportation facilities, housing projects, police stations, waste transfer stations and other venues have become settings for safe sharps and offer syringe collection drop boxes (or "kiosks") to help facilitate the safe collection of used sharps.

These facilities and alternative sites are listed in the directory below:

Service providers may share the above directories to educate clients and to refer them to convenient places in the community where they can safely dispose of their household sharps.

Although every attempt has been made to keep the directories updated, service information may have changed since data was collected. Before visiting the location, we suggest calling the phone number a long-side the site you are interested in to confirm program information. Information posted on this website will be updated regularly as new information becomes available.

Facilities wishing to update information about their community sharps collection sites should e-mail their updated information to: ESAP@health.ny.gov