Abstract: A system and method for handling contaminated operating room surgical instruments includes a rectangular porous strainer which is sufficiently large to fully contain a variety of surgical tools and instruments and a waterproof rectangular basin, sized to receive the strainer. The basin is adapted to fit stably onto a conventional surgical ring stand either alone, or with a separate adapter. The system replaces conventional round surgical basins which are not capable of safely containing the larger or longer surgical instruments typical of many modern surgical procedures. Utilizing the system eliminates the current practice of manually transferring contaminated instruments from the round surgical basins into larger soaking trays for transportation to the decontamination area.