The Sick Of Syringes Project was started by NORMLSask volunteer, Joybuzzard artists collective member and North Central resident Daniel Johnson in 1998, after his then 2 year old daughter almost fell on a needle, it was used to draw attention to the growing hard drug crisis. In the summer of 2005, community centers and eventually the Regina Health Region began training volunteers for needle pickups. Coincidently, at the annual GMM event in May 2005, NORML Saskatchewan supporters and S.O.S. volunteers presented a big box of dirty needles to the Regina Police department with an award certificate addressing the fact that, despite a growing hard drug crisis, 60% of drug arrests in Regina the year before were for marijuana offences.

Police responded by shutting down the 2005 GMM event and threatening to arrest the event organizers if they didn't leave the park.

Most of the needles we find are from the North Central area, which is, according to Maclean's magazine, the worst neighborhood in Canada for 2007, but we've also found them by Northgate Mall, in the playground by Imperial School, by Campbell Collegiate and in the University area. Most,fortunately, are capped. But sometimes the caps have been crushed, so the sharp pokes out the side, almost unnoticeable. Sometimes they're not capped, sometimes they have blood in them, often they're caked in mud.

When my oldest daughter was 2, she was running ahead of me and tripped. I walked over to where she fell in the mud and noticed a needle, buried partway in leaves over the course of the winter. It was broken and caked with dirt, but the sharp was still on and pointed up.
It was laying about an inch from where my daughter's hand landed. Picking them up has been a crusade of sorts for me ever since.
I've phoned various agencies and ask them what to do about them, and the answer shows that they really don't know how extensive the problem is. They tell me to phone the fire department. Maybe in the olden days that was a viable solution. Not now.
I find on average 5 or 6 a day, sometimes more. If me and the other people picking them up phoned the fire department, the city would burn to the ground in the time it took them to get them all. Shrugging off responsibility to a government agency is lazy and stupid, people have to take steps to make their own community a better and safer place to live, not hide in their houses and complain about it.
So, I ended up going to a pharmacy and getting one of those biohazard bins they give to diabetics, and sewed a smaller container onto the inside of my coat so I had something to put them until I got home. When the bin gets full, I give them back to the pharmacy for disposal.
You can't throw them in normal garbages or garbage bins, because then dumpster divers are endangered by them. I've also been trying to get community centers and daycares to keep sharps containers on hand and encourage their staff and patrons to pick them up as well.
Discarded by intravenous drug users, they end up in a variety of interesting places. I've found them in hedges and bushes, on peoples front lawns, beside trees, in gutters, playgrounds, parking lots, bathrooms...
...and taken them from the hands of children.
Once there were two kids about 4 years old I'd guess, playing on the sidewalk in front of their house on a rainy day. They were dipping their squirtguns in the water running down the gutter and then jumping up, shooting at each other, and then refilling again. The sharps were still on them, and they had to stand close to hit so they came inches away from each others faces in the time it took me to figure out what they were doing and take their toys away.
They ran into the house and told their Mom, who came out screaming at me until I showed her the "squirtguns".
Another time, there was a barbecue with free food and drinks in Dewdney Park.
I was playing with my daughter, we were at the top of the slide and I saw a syringe on the ground a few feet away from the slide.
By the time I got down to get it, it was gone and I couldn't tell who picked it up. A little while later, I saw a little boy, about 6 or so. He had busted the sharp off and was using it as a manual straw, putting it in his juice, drawing it up and squirting it into his mouth.
When I got over to where he was, he was in the middle of giving his 3 year old brother a sip. The parents were in line for food, I found them and showed them the syringe.

What to do with them?

Picking them up. Teaching kids not to pick them up. Telling people to watch for them. Telling people not to throw them in garbage bins. This is all short term.
What to do about them? Here's the best long term solution.