The Game Changer in Medical Wast e Management Sterilwave is the most - - PDF document

The Game Changer in Medical Waste Management

Sterilwave is the most innovative ‘on-site’ medical waste treatment service seen by the NHS in two decades. Our modern waste process intelligently grinds then microwaves the waste into a sterile RDF/SRF “flock” that is completely safe to handle and can be disposed of as domestic waste or used as a high calorific fuel source in Waste to Energy plants.

Highlights

• First Sterilwave Plant launched at Whipps Cross

Hospital in December 2016

• Full Environment Agency approval of the

Sterilwave process achieved. No one else with a similar technology has an EA Permit or is likely to have one in the next 3 years

• Improved sustainability, better compliance and

fixed pricing “Sterilwave is the most innovative on-site medical waste service that the NHS has seen in over 20 years” Terry Hewitt, MD

Background

Recently, the NHS and Medical Waste Service providers have focused a lot of their energies on improving the segregation of their Hospital's waste. Recent legislation has also enabled them to categorise a large percentage of High Temperature Incineration Waste (“HTIW”) as lower cost Alternative Treatment ( AT ) waste and many Hospitals have also started to roll out their Offensive Waste ( OW ) streams.

Although these new waste streams have brought benefits, both NHS Trusts and Waste FM providers have been looking at a variety of methods and technologies to best utilise these streams in order to maximise the savings available, whilst also becoming more compliant and improving sustainability. Until now, a viable solution has been difficult to find.

Introducing Eurotec Sterilwave – the Game Changer in Clinical Waste Management

Eurotec Environmental has developed the most innovative on-site clinical waste treatment that the NHS has seen in over two decades. Our modern waste processing is carried out in the innovative Bertin Sterilwave unit. This smart technology cleverly grinds and then microwaves the waste in just one single short cycle turning Offensive and Alternative Category clinical waste into an unrecognisable, sterile flock that can be safely disposed of as domestic waste or used as a calorific fuel in Waste to Energy plants. We broke ground on the first UK Sterilwave Plant at Barts Health Hospital, Whipps Cross, London in July 2016 and went fully operational in January 2017. Barts are hugely supportive of our Sterilwave process and now Whipps Cross is fully

• perational they plan to have Plants installed in at least 2 other Barts Health NHS

sites. The Environment Agency have also been very supportive and have fully approved

• ur process. The EA have issued Eurotec Environmental with the Permit to
• perate our Sterilwave process in the UK&ROI and no other similar technology has

an EA Permit or is likely to achieve one in the next 3 years.

The Sterilwave Process

Eurotec's Sterilwave process reduces the cost to the NHS of the disposal of hazardous waste streams whilst providing peace of mind by providing Fixed Price contracts* normally for 5 or 7 years ( * subject to RPI ). Although pricing is clearly an important consideration, our Eurotec Sterilwave process is not just about being competitive on cost; we also bring other significant environmental benefits such as :

• 1. An 80% reduction in transport to site for the OW and AT waste streams.
• 2. The complete removal of the need for Consignment Notes and the associated

costs and administration activities.

• 3. A total removal of off-site compliance issues caused by poor segregation. As the

AT and OW waste streams will never leave the site until they are fully treated, any poor segregation issues are handled on-site and corrected immediately.

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• 4. A significantly improved Carbon Footprint by up to 30% due to the much reduced

transport movements.

• 5. The ability to create a Profit Share by using the Sterilwave Plant to treat Third

Party Clinical Waste (also providing positive PR)

• 6. The opportunity to save even more money by implementing our behavior Change

in Waste service that has enabled other Acute Hospital's to make significant savings by enabling them to fully roll-out their Offensive Waste Stream, improve staff waste knowledge and the hospital waste processes plus also saving energy. During our treatment process, clients waste is reduced in volume and weight by up to 80% and 20% respectively which enables Eurotec to remove the SDF/RDF in 15-20 tonne loads, as opposed to the existing highly inefficient 1.3 tonne loads in multiple 770 litre containers. Our Sterilwave process presents no risk of infection and is environmentally friendly, producing zero emissions.

The Technology

The Sterilwave machine is the principle equipment to be utilised for the safe processing and sterilisation of AT and OW waste. The process is safe, effective, certified and straightforward. The following equipment will also be provided to support our on-site service:

• Clinical Waste Bins - both 770 litre and 360 litre
• Bin Washing Plant
• Weighing and Tracking System
• Processed Waste Storage Unit
• Disposal of treated RDF - if required

Full detailed specifications for the machine and it's operation can be found at www.sterilwave.com. In essence, though, the waste is mechanically pulverised by rotary blades and is subjected to microwaves to provide certainty of sterilisation to both EU and UK standards. A sterilisation cycle takes a maximum of 32 minutes. The supplier of the machinery, Bertin, has been specifically selected by Eurotec Environmental for the following reasons:

• The machinery is already approved and being used throughout the world
• Bertin is a substantial entity and provides full back up of spares, training and

support

• Certainty of processing

The End Product

The end product of the Sterilwave process is a sterile "flock". This waste flock is unrecognisable as medical origin waste and can be designated as a Recycled Derived Fuel (RDF) or Solid/Specified Recovered Fuel (SRF) with a Calorific Value (CV) of approx. 14MJ/KG. Our intention is to ensure that our flock is used to feed energy from waste plants (such as cementation plants and specially adapted and licensed R1 plants) in the UK. It is, however, worth noting that this waste, once processed, could legally be taken to any landfill or municipal incinerator. AT waste is now often being burned in Clinical Waste incinerators to act as a fuel to replace the lost HTIW. Many NHS clients have raised the question as to why they are now being charged two prices for the same disposal service when both are transported and incinerated in exactly the same way. It is also well known in the waste industry that the removal from site of OW and AT waste in 770 litre bins is highly inefficient, allowing the transfer off-site of just 1.2 tonnes

• f waste for every 30 bins loaded on an HGV.

Eurotec Environmental is significantly different in our approach to the provision of AT/OW treatment services. We treat the waste on the producer site into a sterile,

• dourless, safe flock that is then moved off-site in 20

tonne loads in compactor units as NON HAZ waste. This makes our service extremely efficient with no compliance issues and a significant "tick" in the environmental box in terms of Carbon Reduction and vehicle movements.

Environment Agency Permitting

Eurotec Environmental has permit approval with the Environment Agency (EA) for the Barts Health NHS Trust at their Whipps Cross Hospital site. The EA does not issue "blanket" permits, licenses or nationwide accreditation for any individual waste treatment process no matter how many have been successfully installed in the UK. As such, each and every time we want to implement one of our Clinical Waste (CW) treatment facilities on a site then it must be individually approved by the EA as if it was the first installation. This provides our clients with significant peace of mind as this means that we cannot operate at a site until the EA have inspected and approved our site, our technology and our processes and have fully signed off. Each specific process machinery will be tested in terms of mechanical, electrical and sterilisation/incineration/autoclaving criteria in terms of biological testing by an independent laboratory advised by the EA for that specific site. All of the associated systems that make up the proposed ‘Operating Site’ including waste reception and storage area, HSE/EMS, emissions to atmosphere and transport movement are also confirmed adequate at this time of commissioning and testing. Only then will any issued Permit become valid. As a French manufactured technology the Sterilwave unit has, of course, already passed all of it's independent sterilisation testing in Paris under the control of the French Institute de Paris. This is an EU and UK recognised certification and this testing will be duplicated on each and every site where we and our NHS and Waste FM clients wish to place a new Sterilwave process as part of obtaining a Permit. In the EU (although not in the UK) such certification is accepted as approval to install

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and operate the plant. The UK compliance regulations are much more stringent, however, and whilst they accept the EU sterilisation and biological testing protocol that was used to certify any process, they still insist on re-testing to this level for every new permit applied for. The Environment Agency are extremely supportive of the Sterilwave technology and

• ur process and we have, of course, followed their guidance completely. The

Whipps Cross permit is processed and in place and we are happy to release copies

• f the permit application, the confirmed certification from Paris, the site drawings

and engineer’s approvals from Whipps Cross and any other supporting information that our clients may require from us.

Frequently Asked Questions

• 1. What volumes can the machine process per day?

There are two Sterilwave units. The larger one can process up to 1000KG per day and the smaller unit up to 600KG and we will normally use a blend of these to properly support a Trust's requirements. In a typical 500 bed hospital, 2 or 3 Sterilwave 440 machines (the larger unit) would be sufficient. This also allows for planned downtime for maintenance and an amount of unplanned downtime for contingency purposes.

• 2. Is it just the AT/Offensive waste it can treat? (I.e. HTI still needs to go
• ffsite)?

Correct - we treat Offensive (OW) and Alternative Treatment (AT) waste only. This normally makes up 80% of a Trust’s clinical waste stream once the high temperature portion has been efficiently segregated. The system encourages the proper segregation of OW/AT by ensuring the pricing for both streams is different with OW being cheaper per tonne. We can also implement our SUST-N Behaviour Change programme to improve and streamline segregation, amongst many other benefits.

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We are also asking the Environment Agency (EA) to consider our technology to be allowed to accept discharged sharps waste, which can only go via Incineration technology at this time. As our system has no effluent discharges or emissions to atmosphere and the flock is eventually used as a fuel then they will review this waste stream in our case.

• 3. What is the capital cost of one of the machines?

We install, operate and maintain the technology at our own investment cost and charge the Trust a cost per tonne to treat their Alternative Treatment and Offensive Waste on-site over a minimum 5 year period. We also remove the sterile/treated waste flock/RDF in 20 tonne compactors about twice a week which reduces clinical waste transport issues on-site by around 80%.

• 4. Will you be just landfilling the flock or is there some zero to landfill, RDF or
• ther route?

The flock will be used in Energy from Waste systems except in exceptional circumstances when it could then be disposed of as LF or municipal waste for a short time until such circumstances abated.

• 5. Do you offer a maintenance contract?

We service and maintain the whole EEL process on site including holding critical spares as part of our contract. The Sterilwave units are non pressurised, reach temperatures of just 110degC, are simple to operate and lend themselves to ease

• f maintenance. In the unlikely event of any serious failure a new unit could be in

place within 24 hours.

• 6. Do you install a bin washer?

We install a fully automated bin washer at all our sites. You will see similar washers at merchant plant sites. We also provide all 770 and 360 litre bins as part of the contract but as the waste is treated on-site these bins never need to leave the hospital premises. Also, it is likely that less bins will be needed as there is no ‘off site’ bin numbers in transit to contend with.

• 7. What are the space requirements (footprint) of each machine?

Each unit needs a 4.1m "cube" to operate; this includes the movement envelope of the lift and tip device which is integral to the machine. In many NHS case studies it is often the case that this space can be found in the waste yard or close by.

• 8. What is the realistic running time, including loading and unloading per kg?

When treating AT waste each cycle is 35 minutes. When treating OW the cycle time is just 12 minutes.

• 9. What is the power usage per CYCLE?

Consumption is 11 KWH per 35 min cycle. Less for the 12 min cycle. The cost of power is included in the agreed cost per tonne. 10.What is the delivery time from order being placed? Each new site in the UK will require a full EA permit which we obtain at our cost. This is a requirement for every technology provider to comply with, not just Eurotec

• Environmental. In some cases where a new building is required, Planning

Permission may be required (but not always) as hospitals are often seen as adding and removing processes over time. Both of these processes take about 12 weeks but because our process is not seen as a ‘burn' or 'high pressure’ technology we are seeing timescales being adhered to very well. These programme events tend to dictate the critical path of 16 weeks from order. All of our machinery is available to us from our manufacturers within 12 from order so it is the EA and Planning activities that dictate our contract start date. At worst, our construction activities see a pre- fabricated building, sterilwave units, washer unit and PC based tracking all being installed in a 5 week period. The Eurotec Sterilwave machines take just 3 days to commission and test to comply with the EA permit. 11.What is the end product of the Sterilwave process? Sterilwave produces an RDF "Flock" that is <6mm, nonhazardous and very easy to store efficiently. 12.How easy is the Sterilwave to operate? The machine can be switched on or off at the touch of a button - no lengthy cooling down or warm up periods are needed. The system is not pressurised nor does it reach temps exceeding 110degC which is extremely important for processes being used on NHS Hospital sites. The EEL operator training level is comprehensive because whilst the Sterilwave and washer units are effectively auto controlled once a cycle has been selected, most of the operator training is associated with the important issues such as permit conditions, waste acceptance, spillage procedures, Health and Safety, client waste policies and any necessary interaction with hospital and Waste FM staff, EA inspection, and members of the public. 13.What do EEL require from the Hospital site? We need to agree that the Hospital will allow us to use the agreed site area for a peppercorn rental fee for the contract period and that they will support the need to allow EEL to connect up to a metered 400v, 3 phase electrical supply, 230v single phase supply, metered domestic water supply and to the internal foul sewer drain system.

Conclusion Eurotec Environmental is the first company in 20 years to provide the NHS with a bespoke, compliant and environmentally sustainable solution to the ‘on site’ treatment of Offensive and Alternative Treatment waste categories. We offer this complete solution at competitive prices whilst delivering genuine carbon savings, solid environmental and compliance improvements whilst integrating seamlessly with the Hospital's existing waste movement regime. We hope this information is of interest. If you require anything further from us at this point then please don't hesitate to contact us on the details below. We look forward to hearing from you. Paul Barker paul.barker@eurotec-environmental.co.uk Mob : +44 (0) 7725 918698 Tel : +44 (0) 1621 744740

Eurotec Environmental Limited
 Essex, CM3 6LF t|01621 744 740 e|info@eurotec-environmental.co.uk w|www.eurotec-environmental.co.uk