Sterilis device grinds medical waste

Sterilis LLC, Boxborough, Massachusetts, introduced a different approach to treating regulated medical waste (RMW) designed to enable healthcare and public health facilities to reduce risk, liability and operational costs, while significantly improving patient and worker safety.

The Sterilis device is an alternative to the method of hauling dangerous waste by truck to be incinerated. Sterilis’ device uses steam sterilization and grinding technology to transform medical waste into a harmless confetti-like material, which can be disposed of in the general waste stream.

Many healthcare facilities have limited space and the handling and storage of medical waste is a growing concern. Medical waste transport costs have also continually risen in recent years due to labor costs, fuel prices and waste volume increases.

“The regulated medical waste industry has seen little innovation and still operates under an archaic approach of ‘haul and burn.’ Therefore, the industry is ripe for disruption with Sterilis’ new, safer, and more sustainable approach to treat and safely dispose of regulated medical waste, when and where it is generated,” says Bob Winskowicz, CEO of Sterilis. “The Sterilis device makes handling medical waste safer, protects healthcare professionals, reduces costs, time and labor and reduces the need to incinerate medical waste. We’re excited by the response and customer demand for the Sterilis device as we enter a more aggressive growth phase and expand our sales and distribution footprint nationwide.”

Sterilis devices are in use at hospitals, dialysis clinics, surgery centers, dermatology and ophthalmology practices, needle drop-off centers, health clinics and clinical labs.

Sterilis is also seeing demand for its device in local needle exchange facilities. Many needles are dispensed at a local pharmacy or needle exchange, but some self-injectors are throwing needles away in the regular garbage while others throw them on the ground. 

Additionally, demand for Sterilis’ device is coming from facilities looking to address their emergency preparedness plans for situations such as natural disasters or disease outbreaks. The device is a portable, self-contained unit providing on-site remediation of RMW for quarantined areas when conventional methods of disposal are incapacitated.

Sterilis’ device is designed to treat RMW in about 60 minutes. As a result of grinding the waste, the device is designed to reduce the volume of waste by 80 percent, and the sterilized confetti can be thrown out in the regular trash. It includes software that tracks all regulatory data and stores it in the cloud, where it can be accessed and monitored at any time.