According to Safe Work Australia, all female workers should be provided with hygienic means to dispose of sanitary items. Although the text doesn’t explicitly refer to sanitary bins in particular, it implies a duty of care on behalf of employers to provide washroom services that include disposal bins or other similar and adequate disposal methods.
So whether you own a small business or run a large office building, it’s your responsibility to ensure that female workers and visitors have easy access to safe and hygienic sanitary bins in the washrooms.
Sanitary waste disposal in simple terms is the removal of any unwanted feminine hygiene products, mainly menstruation pads, that have been used. However, simply throwing these products away or flushing them down the toilet can be a huge health risk as well as damage property.
"Fatbergs" can accumulate when foreign objects flushed down toilets bind together, and cause drain blockages. "Things like wet wipes, nappies, sanitary products shouldn't be going down the toilet," the Water Corporation's Clare Lugar said. Proper feminine hygiene waste disposal can prevent these events from happening while raising hygiene standards.
While it may be understandable that women would prefer to flush their products rather than carry them around to find a suitable disposal unit, this can result in major plumbing problems for your facilities. Most drains are not designed to carry much more than toilet paper, and flushing sanitary products on a regular basis can mean costly blockages and possible flooding of your washrooms.
By installing sanitary bins in your public toilets, you can avoid the risk of incurring expensive call-outs to deal with heavy blockages, and ensure that your facilities are in the best working order for your staff and your customers.
Equipped with disinfectant granules as well as antibacterial technology, Cleanpro's Feminine Hygiene Unit (Sanitary Bin) is designed to provide businesses a safe, discreet and environmentally friendly way of disposing sanitary waste. Our professionally trained technicians will sanitise these units as scheduled in an efficient and discreet manner to ensure that hygiene standards are raised and consistently met.
Lack of sanitary bins can lead to plumbing problems
As with any products in your washroom, sanitary bins should be emptied and cleaned regularly to maintain the highest hygiene standards. You can outsource the servicing of your sanitary bins but if you choose to conduct it in-house, ensure your employees wear gloves and other protective clothing at all times.
Hygiene is naturally of the utmost importance. Automatic bins or bins that require minimal touching are considered amongst the most hygienic options on the market. Bins that can be operated automatically without users touching the surface help prevent germ spreading and contamination. As well as being highly hygienic, they are also a favourite amongst users.
As long as you can provide female employees or washroom visitors with safe and hygienic means of disposing sanitary waste, then you are meeting your legal requirement and can have peace of mind. Our range of sanitary disposal bins have a range of features to suit your requirements, with both touch-free operation and easy to use finger-tip control open options.
As companies and businesses move towards a more environmentally conscious future, whether it be through banning single-use plastic straws or switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, waste disposal is only growing in importance.
You can find more information about our range here