The answer is a sharps container. Milady's instruction is unambiguous: "Discard used blades in a sharps container." This exact wording appears twice in the textbook — once in the facial-shaving chapter and again in the infection-control chapter — underscoring how strictly it's treated as a bloodborne-pathogen safety rule, not just a tidiness preference.
A closed receptacle, a plastic garbage bag, or a plain trash basket — the other choices — are exactly the kind of everyday container a used blade should never go in; a puncture-resistant sharps container is specifically designed to prevent needlestick-style injuries to anyone handling shop trash afterward.
Milady Standard Barbering, 6th ed., Ch. 13 (Men's Facial Shaving), p. 352 (also stated at Ch. 4, p. 95): "Discard used blades in a sharps container."
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