Monday, June 11, 2012

Where Do The Spaceships Go?

In the last year, I've gone from someone who had only used one kind of infusion set for her whole insulin pumping career to someone who is trying new things all over the place.


I feel that the title of "Comfort" is quite misleading... nothing about needles is comfy.
The old standby - Comfort sets. (image credit)

The first "new" set I tried was last summer at Friends For Life - the Animas booth folks gave me one each of the Inset and Inset 30 sets to try, since I'd never used either one before. (That's one more thing to love about FFL - freebies abound!) I decided to try the Inset 30 while I was still at the conference, with some help from my friends and Twitter, but never ordered more of those sets. They just weren't my thing, and I returned to the manual sites to which I had grown accustomed.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago: I had the opportunity to try some of the Spring Universal sets. (Which I keep intending to write about but never get around to it... maybe later this week?) I do actually like these for a number of reasons, which I'll get into later, but for now my supply has been depleted.


Which brings me to what I'm using right now (thanks to an inheritance from someone who switched pumps and had leftover sets they kindly shared with me)...


...and the reason for this post. When I used the Comfort sets, there was minimal "throw-away" after inserting the set. In fact, all that was left was the needle and its handle, so those could easily fit into the top of my sharps container of choice:


With all of the extra packaging that comes with using Insets, I'm at a loss as to how to discard these little spaceship-shaped things properly. Normal sharps containers (like the kinds you buy for that specific purpose) all seem to have a small opening up top. I'm left to amassing a growing village of them on my kitchen counter, apparently.

Sharps and bananas. It's what's for breakfast.
Help me out - where do the spaceships go? Do I tape the lid down and throw it in the normal trash? Is there a different kind of container I should use? Do I chuck it into a corn field and hope it takes flight?

15 comments:

  1. Possibly I'm the worst disposer of sets ever, but I have the pink spaceships, and all I do is tuck the needle under a plastic area and. . .toss it in the trash.

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  2. I inherited a bunch of Cleo sets and had the same question at first...now I just screw the white part back on and toss in the trash.

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  3. I keep a small pair of plyers next to my sharps container and pull out the needle to dispose of. The rest of thing thing goes straight into the recycling bin :) easy peasy!

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  4. I have a sharps container with a larger opening from Edgepark. The white plastic with the needle actually pops out of the pink bottom part as well for reduced sharps container trash. When I use the Mio's I just put the inserter part into the sharps container.

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  5. Umm... oops. I don't even use sharps containers.. I'm a bad T1.

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  6. Can these things be recycled? I get the Mio infusion sets from Medtronic (basically the same thing) and they have a little recycle symbol on them. Can I just cap them and throw them in the recyclable container? Oh, and I'm with the rest of you - I don't use a sharps container.

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  7. As long as you snap the top back on, it is its own biohazard thing, and you can just throw it away. You might want to double check, but I started those not too long ago and I remember either reading about that or the salesperson telling me.

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  8. I use pliers to pull out the needle in the spaceship.
    And... my sharps container is a chocolate covered peanuts can :)

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  9. You can absolutely disassemble and recycle the plastic! I pop the needle and spring device into my sharps container (i.e., a coffee container), and then recycle the spaceship container :) the idea of using pliers to just throw the needle in the sharps container and then recycle the whole magilla is brilliant!

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  10. Who knew I should add pliers to my diabetes arsenal? Works like a charm! Thanks, all!

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  11. I'm with you. I used to use exclusively Silhouettes (same as the Comfort), and just the needle went in the sharps container. Ever since switching (to Sure-T, with the needle, some tubing, and two patches in one), my iced-tea-bottle-turned-sharps-container is filling up a lot more quickly...

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  12. I use Medtronic Mios, which are basically the same thing. It's perfectly safe to throw them out in the trash after use. Just snap the cover back on and toss it. The cover isn't going to come off in the trash because it secures shut. The needle isn't exposed and won't be a danger to anyone.

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  13. I think that works, except for the times where the container gets crushed and the lid pops off, exposing the needle. :(

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  14. Depends on what state you live in. Here in Az we are allowed to just toss needles into the trash (we don't! we use a sharps container) but for these we do just put a lid on it and toss it in.

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