Question

Heat-fixing kills the bacteria on the slide. When you are through with the slide, is it still considered biohazardous waste?

Answer 1

Heat-fixing kills the bacteria on the slide. When you are through with the slide, is it still considered biohazardous waste?

Heat fixing is the method that is used when preparing a bacterial slide before subjecting it to microscopic observation. The bacteria is dried and fixed on the glass slide such that the cells would not be washed when the procedure of staining occurs. Most of the bacteria that are vegetative would be killed in this process. Though, this has still to be treated as a biohazard waste since the endospores would or probably might be alive. Endospores are more resistant to heat and thus there is a high chance of them being still alive. It’s better to consider it as a biohazard waste.