The North Bay Parry Sound District Health Unit is still working on an exact date on when to install a dropbox in Sturgeon Falls for used needles.
The health unit and Municipality of West Nipissing agree the location of the box will be between Queen Street and Main Street.
The goal, according to the last council meeting, is to have the dropbox in place sometime in January but the health unit told MyWestNipissingNow.com an exact date has not been finalized.
The agreement signed by all parties points to an installation date of sometime between January 6th and January 17th.
The dropbox will be clearly marked as to its use and Mayor Joanne Savage says it’s not intended as a garbage can.
Savage and council are fully behind the dropbox program with the Mayor adding it can save lives since the used needles are in a secure container and are not likely to fall into the wrong hands with someone finding a sharp on the sidewalk.
The program is being carried out in partnership with the Alliance Centre at the West Nipissing General Hospital.
The health unit will provide the used needle bin and have it installed directly into the cement sidewalk.
Afterward, the bin’s maintenance becomes the responsibility of the municipality.
It will also be the municipality’s responsibility to dispose of the used sharps through a connection with ECS Cares.
Once the disposal bin is in place the health unit plans to carry out an education campaign on the purpose and benefit of the used needle box.
Both the health unit and municipality will share the cost of the one-time education program.
The municipality will be responsible for working out how many times the bin is emptied by ECS Cares which will dispose of the used sharps.
The health unit is recommending that the municipality have a mechanism in place where residents can report if the bin is damaged and how full it is.
It also suggests that the bin display an after-hours phone number people can call to address circumstances.
To get an idea of how many used needles are being deposited in the bin, the municipality will report those numbers to the health unit quarterly.
In November the health unit ran a sharps buyback program where it gave gift cards to people who brought back used needles rather than just discarding them.
In total, 48,800 used needles were returned and of that number 10,800 needles came from West Nipissing.