Snohomish County equips residents with needle kits

One of the most visible signs of the opioid crisis is used needles left scattered throughout communities.

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That’s led to many people doing their own needle cleanup in Snohomish County. Starting Wednesday, April 25, the Snohomish Health District is expanding a program to assist those efforts.

Whether it’s home and business owners finding needles on their property or community-led needle clean-up operations in parks and wooded areas, there’s a big demand for safe needle cleanup kits in the county — as well as a legal place to dispose of them.

Heather Thomas with the Health District says that’s what prompted the county to launch a free needle cleanup kit program.

“It’s really the community that’s been taking part in this,” she said. “We knew people were out there cleaning up syringes. We wanted to make sure that if they’re doing it that they’re doing it safely.”

The county began offering the free kits at the health district. The kits include a container for needles, puncture proof gloves, safety goggles, sanitizer, and instructions.

But Thomas says demand was much larger than expected.

“When we launched the program I think we were overwhelmed with how popular it was right out of the gate. We actually ran out of kits for a couple of days. Since September, we’ve given out over 800 kits and then the Health District has ensured that over 10,000 syringes were safely disposed of through this program.”

Starting Wednesday, the free needle cleanup kit program will expand countywide, with kits available at the Health District, Everett and Lynnwood city halls, as well as the Monroe and Arlington police departments.

The needle cleanup kits cost about $8 to $10 a piece. The county buys in bulk to keep the cost to the county minimal. The disposal services being done by Solid Waste are part of an existing contract with the county.

The other big problem has been the lack of options for those using the kits to safely dispose of the sealed SHARPS containers when they’re full. Before, you could only drop them off at the health district. Starting Wednesday, full, sealed SHARPS containers can be dropped off at the county’s three recycling and transfer stations, in Everett, Arlington, and Mountlake Terrace as well as at the Monroe Police Department.

Dave Schonhard with Snohomish County Solid Waste says they’ll have special disposal bins for the containers at all three transfer stations, along with specially trained staff.

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“We actually have SHARPS clean up on county-owned property that we do. For instance, on this property [Everett transfer station], there is sometimes a homeless encampment here and we have staff that is trained to properly pick up and dispose of materials. But the outreach to the community to make it a much bigger workforce, if you would, it seemed a natural pairing to have us do the disposal site.”

The other benefit is that as people drop off those SHARPS containers workers will gather information on where those needles came from so the county can identify hot spots.

Snohomish County spokesman Kent Patton says that’s a big help in the local fight against the opioid epidemic.

“One of the biggest challenges is getting our heads around how big is the problem? Because so much of the problem is hidden; there is shame associated with it and so it’s hidden, it’s in woods, it’s behind closed doors. And so to be able to find out a little more, what are the impacts of this on the entirety of our community helps us then get the tools together to be able to address that problem.”

Last October, the county announced the creation of its Opioid Response Multi-Agency Coordination Group, or MAC group. It’s essentially a collaborative effort among county agencies and elected officials to take on the opioid epidemic.

And Snohomish County Health District Administrator Jeff Ketchel says the expansion of the free needle cleanup kits and the creation of the safe disposal sites are just a small part of that effort.

“You see a lot of the collateral damage from this epidemic, whether it’s from the nuisance properties to the needles in the parks to the petty crimes a lot of this damage that’s affecting everybody every day. There’s also the other pieces that we’re responding to as a MAC group and that includes making sure there is enough treatment available so that when somebody is ready for treatment that treatment can be provided, to make sure people aren’t becoming addicts … preventing the next generation of addicts.”

The free needle clean up kits will be available at the following locations starting tomorrow:

• Snohomish Health District
• Everett City Hall
• Lynnwood City Hall
• Monroe Police Department
• Arlington Police Department

Once the containers are full and sealed you can dispose of them for free at:

• Snohomish Health District
• Monroe Police Department
• Everett transfer station
• Arlington transfer station
• Mountlake Terrace transfer station

You can also see detailed instructions on how to safely use the needle clean up kits here.

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