Article published in the Hospital Bulletin - February 2005
To date there has been very little in terms of choice in clinical waste treatment technologies, you had incineration until the mid 1990's, then alternative technologies started to drift into the UK largely from the United States. And although the technologies varied you had a basic choice of incinerating or heat treatment followed by landfill. For the environmentalist it was sometime difficult to assess the greener process, incinerate and recover the heat seemed the best environmental option at one time, but you still had carbon and other emissions. With alternative technology the environmental counter argument was that you always had a large landfill disposal issue to deal with.
There is now a definitive answer to this issue. Medical Waste Solutions Ltd (MWS) has brought together technologies from different industries to provide a complete clinical waste treatment process which does not rely on incineration and it does not rely on the use of landfill disposal. It relies on a three stage process which allows 95% of the clinical waste stream to be recycled into new products closing the disposal loop and bringing clinical waste management into the realms of a manufacturing process.
The primary treatment plant is the Rotoclave, manufactured by Tempico of Louisiana. This advanced rotary autoclave sterilises clinical waste in a process that uses the same parameters of time temperature and pressure that decontamination autoclaves use for surgical instruments. Rotoclaves have been operating in hospitals and commercial setting since 1992 with over seventy plants across the world, there are two UK based commercial scale plants in operation. This means that the primary technology is well tried and tested, a technology with a huge amount of experience in treating clinical waste.
Medical Waste Solutions understands that a primary consideration for any Trust Manager looking at re-letting their clinical waste contract is how well does the plant operate, is it reliable and is it compliant? In looking for the primary technology we have put ourselves in the position of our clients and have gone for the most reliable and effective system we could find not the cheapest.
The secondary process takes the now sterile clinical waste flock and introduces it for a second time to temperature and pressure to produce a product, which is sterile, dry and six times more dense than the original clinical waste. The material is in granular form, it is now not classed as clinical waste, nor is it hazardous, it is not subject to the carriage of dangerous goods regulations. This material is then transported to a plastics manufacturer who will use the material within a Powder Impression Moulding process (PIMs).
PIMs is the latest technology in the field of plastic moulding it is owned by 3DM Worldwide and has the ability to manufacture a wide range of complex moulded products which to date have been too expensive to manufacture in the conventional plastic moulding techniques of rotational and injection moulding. It also has the ability to use mixed polymers and other materials within the moulds including treated sterile granulated clinical waste flock.
The advantages of Medical Waste Solutions approach to clinical waste management is that for the first time new products can be made on a commercial scale from material which is today incinerated or ultimately landfilled as being too difficult or expensive to recycle. Now hospitals can start recycling their clinical wastes without the need to change their collection and handling procedures or incurring additional costs for its segregation.
The first site to utilise this unique collaboration of technologies has been set up at Bradford with the treated flock being used at a PIMs plant in Wales. Throughout the development of this process Officers of the EA’s Hazardous Waste Unit have been consulted and have given positive feedback on our approach and subject to completion of trials at the Bradford plant have agreed that the process would be an appropriate treatment for Prescription Only Medicine Contaminated Sharps.
With changes in legislation looming including The Waste Incineration Directive making incineration costs more expensive. The increases in landfill charges and importantly the landfill tax escalator. The Hazardous Waste Regulations, which still leaves a large question mark against the future status of some classes of clinical waste. We believe that our approach to clinical waste management is the right way forward. We believe that whatever happens with the final status of POMs contaminated sharps the MWS process will be an appropriately licensed solution.
The primary and secondary plant and equipment is compact and ideally suited to being located on a hospital site. With a wide range of throughput options Medical Waste Solutions can start introducing other environmental benefits by maximising the “Proximity Principal” the treatment of clinical waste as close to its point of production as possible. One project currently under review could see 100,000 miles of road transport eliminated each year from the management of 2000 tonnes of clinical waste.
Clinical waste management is now coming of age and there are real opportunities for the clinical waste producer who is looking for the highest standard of treatment technology. A reliable and effective technology which meets the highest standards of treatment compliance, provides sustainable benefits to the environment and at a price which competes now and which also has the potential to largely insulate Trusts from the rising costs associated with landfill disposal in the long term.
Medical Waste Solutions Ltd will be at the HeFMA annual conference in St Albans 9-10 May 2005.
For
more information please contact Charles Everson at
Medical Waste Solutions Ltd
Concorde House
Concorde Way
Preston Farm
Stockton-on-Tees
TS18 3RB
Telephone 01642 353537
Email: charles@medicalwastesolutions.co.uk
