HOOKSETT, N.H. (AP) -More of New Hampshire’s highway rest areas soon will offer safer ways for travelers with diabetes and other illnesses to dispose of their used needles.

The five welcome centers in Hooksett, Nashua and Seabrook already feature so-called “sharps containers,” and transportation officials say the system has worked so well, they plan on expanding it statewide.

The idea came from safety officer Allan Barrington, who was concerned that his co-workers were finding used syringes in the trash.

“They’re putting on a pair of leather gloves while they’re removing the garbage. I didn’t feel that was enough,” said Barrington, safety coordinator for the state Bureau of Turnpikes.

He discovered that U.S. Department of Labor regulations require employers to provide a safe disposal method for needles and other sharp objects that workers encounter in their jobs. So he purchased several containers to collect such items and installed them at the five rest areas, his bureau’s maintenance sheds and the administrative buildings at the toll plazas.

Jon Hanson, assistant administrator for the turnpike bureau, said he was surprised at how often the containers are used.

“We assumed that not all of them would be used and we’d have a lot of empty containers on the wall,” he said. “Just the opposite happened.”

After addicts tried to break into the boxes and steal needles in Seabrook, the box there was moved out of the restroom and into the common area, Barrington said.

Containers will be added to the rest areas in Sutton, Canterbury, Epsom and Salem by the end of the month, and to the rest of the state within two years.

“It’s a convenience for the traveling public because they do have a way to dispose of a sharp implement, but it’s also a big safety measure for our employees,” said Carol Murray, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation.

There’s also been talk of putting sharps containers in all of the department’s patrol facilities, Murray said, to provide a safe place to put things found on the side of the road. She said some DOT workers have been accidentally pricked by needles, though none have gotten sick.

Barrington said he hasn’t had a turnpike worker get stuck with a dirty needle in the six years he’s been on the job, but “there was always that risk.”

“I don’t want anybody getting whacked in the head, run over by a truck or getting a needle stuck picking up trash,” he said. “We like everyone to go home in the same shape they came to work in the morning.”

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Information from: New Hampshire Union Leader, http://www.unionleader.com

AP-ES-11-12-06 1121EST