The Department of Environmental Quality classifies medical waste as:The Department of Environmental Quality classifies medical waste as:

1. Blood-Saturated Waste: Contaminated items that, if compressed, would drip release blood or other potentially infectious materials in a liquid or semi-liquid state. (Blood-saturated waste is considered infectious; blood-tainted waste is not.)

2. Pathological and Anatomical Waste: Tissues, organs, body parts, and body fluids removed during surgery and autopsy

 3. Human Blood and Blood Products (known as liquid medical waste): Includes blood, serum, plasma, blood products, other potentially infectious materials

4. Cultures and Stocks of Infectious Agents: Also called microbiological waste. Includes specimens from medical and pathology laboratories; culture dishes and devices used to transfer, inoculate, and mix; and discarded live and attenuated vaccines 

5. Sharps: Contaminated hypodermic needles, syringes, scalpel blades, Pasteur pipettes, and broken glass 

6. Isolation Waste: Generated by hospitalized patients who are isolated to protect others from communicable disease

7. Contaminated Animal Carcasses, Body Parts, and Bedding: Also includes related wastes that may have been exposed to infectious agents during research or pharmaceutical testing

Infectious waste should be secured in a manner and location which offers:

• protection from animals, rain, wind
• does not provide a breeding place or a food source for insects and rodents

The containment of waste should be secured to deny unauthorized access and be marked with prominent warning signs.