Rotating Paddles Inside of Heated Vessel System

Automated Loading

This system typically requires manual loading of bags and sharps containers. In many instances, the user must create a manual “push stick” to force waste through a small opening/hatch. The person loading the unit pushes as much as they can into the opening, stops, rotates the paddles inside of the unit, loads more, etc. This is very labor intensive, and potentially exposes the person loading the unit to airborne pathogens.

The STI Waste Treatment System is entirely automated and will NOT require manual handling of any waste or waste bag during loading. The STI unit incorporates negative pressure to draw air away from the person in the room, HEPA filters the air and releases air that is approximately 10,000 times cleaner than the air was originally in the room.

Complete Shredding

The competitive system rotates the bags and sharps containers inside of the unit with paddles. The paddles do not reliably open the bags or containers to expose the temperature to the waste. Unpredictably, some glass bottles, tin cans, IV tubing, etc. will not be broken open during the tumbling process, defeating the idea of breaking open the containers to begin with.

In the STI unit, the medical waste containers and their contents are shredded while steam simultaneously treats the waste in the sealed shredding chamber and in a slow-moving auger below the shredder. All of the bags, sharps containers and their contents are shredded during the actual steam treatment in the BioSAFE Medical Waste Systems Chem-Clav, thoroughly exposing all materials to the sterilizing steam.

No Batching

This system operates in batch fashion. This means that once you have physically placed the medical waste into the unit, a door is closed and the user must wait for up to an hour for the contents to become hot, even if the user has more waste to be treated, causing storage requirements for the user and insists that an operator return to load again later. The operator waits on the system.

The STI unit is not a typical batch feed system, but rather a continuous system. Users are allowed to roll entire bins of waste into the unit, without having to wait for an hour at a time before introducing the next cart of waste. The unit dumps a bin, steams the bin, sets the bin back down, and the user may roll in the next bin of waste. In this fashion, the equipment “waits” for the user, not making the user wait for the machinery.

No Additional Staffing

This competitor requires a full-time employee to load, unload, and untangle the waste from the treatment chamber, sometimes using farm tools to accomplish this task factory.

The STI unit is entirely automated. The user rolls a cart of waste into the system and pushes one button. The system does ALL of the rest of the work. The user may walk away from the system and perform other duties. No FTE is required with the STI Waste Treatment System.

Reduction of Water Content

Rotating paddles do a good job of eliminating moisture from the waste due to very high temperatures.

STI systems dehydrate the moisture from the waste and automatically deposit shredded, dry waste into the compactor. The competitor requires manual loading and unloading because of wrapped waste around the paddles.

No Belt Conveyors

Rotating paddle systems typically use an open belt conveyor to convey the waste once the cooking cycle is done. These open conveyors move the waste above an open shredding unit. The waste is very hot and dry tends to fluff and float in the air as airborne cellulose. This system has a history associated with being a fire hazard. The open shredder will become soiled with cooked blood, urine, feces, and other undesirable organic materials and may become a Vector for pests. This also presents problems associated with maintenance of the shredding components. Over time, the cooked blood, urine and feces will become a growth media that would colonize organisms and have to be surface decontaminated in some manner prior to working on the high wear components of the shredder.

The STI unit requires NO open belt conveyors. The entire process is sealed and self-contained. The system uses the heaviest duty and most rugged shredding units in the industry, period. The shredder will not become the center for bacterial growth and will allow for safe, quick entry during preventive maintenance due to the fact that it is constantly decontaminated with steam during operation.

Heavy-Duty Construction

Downtime to repair light-duty shredders on the rotating paddle systems is high in comparison to the STI unit. Paddle systems use much lighter duty shredding unit/s that can require more maintenance in comparison to our heavier and better-designed systems.

Downtime with the STI unit is scheduled for ongoing maintenance only.

Effective Sanitation

Both paddle systems and the STI Waste Treatment System achieve high marks for efficacy results and are capable of high-level disinfection of the medical waste. Both systems are capable of inactivating Bacterial Spores at 6 Log 10 or greater. However, the cooking time for the paddles system may have to be extended to properly treat sealed “Rocket containers” or blood canisters as many of these are not properly opened or broken during the competitive process.

Low Maintenance

The rotary seals required to seal the rotating shaft inside of the competitive system are prone to maintenance problems creating downtime.

The STI has no rotating seals to leak in the treatment chamber.

No Odors

The waste that exits the competitor is hot and may have a foul odor.

The waste that exits the STI unit is hot, dry, and clean smelling waste. This is due to the patented system that allows for the addition of a tiny amount of sodium Hypochlorite prior to the steam treatment of the waste. Waste from the systems will NOT become a Vector for rodents or insects and will not present the problem of foul odors.