Sterilizing the trash produced by a whole community may seem unusual; but this sanitation service is coming soon to an island nation in the Caribbean. Tempico Inc. in conjunction with Davies Engineering is coordinating the entire waste management system for a new housing development being built in the Dominican Republic. The massive project includes 1500 new homes, 1000 apartments, a shopping center, hotel, hospital, and the waste management plant with the trademarked autoclave technology. Tempico’s Rotoclave fulfills a wide range of waste treatment needs for the entire community.

The company has distributed this technology both internationally and across the United States since the 1990s. Initially, the company focused on serving the healthcare industry. Waste management applications such as the Dominican Republic project are one of their more recent initiatives. Municipal solid waste (MSW) can be reduced by up to 50% without the need for any of the grinding that is required when coping with medical waste. With lack of space in many landfills posing a problem, the advantage of using a Rotoclave becomes obvious.

Tempico Products in Medical Applications

Medical waste disposal is often conducted through incineration at significant cost and energy expense. Great care is needed in handling because of the infectious nature of the material. The giant spinning autoclave built by Tempico, called a Rotoclave, is becoming a popular alternative to incineration in a broader market. It can easily take care of an enormous amount of medical waste in as little as 30 minutes. This process uses a fraction of the energy normally expended via other methods.

The helix shaped angular surfaces on the interior of the rotating internal drum automatically load and unload the machine and help agitate the debris as necessary throughout the cycle. The material does not need to be sorted and unopened containers can be loaded with no problem. A Touch-Screen operator panel controls the whole sequence from the door being closed, to the monitoring of the process, and the unloading of the end product.

The steam, vacuum, and pressure cycle reduces the volume of waste by about 50 to 80% (depending upon the circumstances) and there is not any of the air pollution normally associated with burning. There is no adverse environmental impact when processing hazardous waste this way. The resulting refuse has the consistency of compost and is inert.

What are the advantages of using the Rotoclave?

• It is a safer and less expensive to treat medical waste as close to the generation point as possible.
  One of the available sizes can usually fit in an existing hospital boiler room space and can utilize the steam from it to save time, costs, and energy.
• Additional costs will be saved by the reduction of volume. There will be a lot less trash to haul away and a lot more room left in the landfill.
• There are no harmful emissions. New government emission regulations are easily met.
• Less energy is used in this sterilization process than in the alternative methods. Therefore, operating costs can be reduced.

Whether your facility has an application requiring sterile waste disposal or instrument processing, you can benefit from this free report. Take 2 minutes to read how you can best meet your specific autoclave needs.