For healthcare and research professionals, dealing with clinical waste can be an essential part of everyday activity.
Our integrated waste management service includes the secure and traceable treatment and disposal of a full range of clinical waste; including offensive, infectious, sharps, pharmaceutical, cytotoxic/cytostatic medicines, anatomical, washroom and low-level radioactive waste.
Our award-winning clinical waste collection and disposal service has been built on years of expertise. We are pleased to be trusted by the NHS, leading life science institutions, local authorities and many other sectors who rely on us.
By offering a total waste management service, we take care of issues such as segregation, security and traceability. We know that compliance with all necessary legislation is a major concern and take pride in our ability to ensure our customers meet the latest legislative requirements.
Sustainability is at the core of our business. We can help you achieve zero waste to landfill by utilising our own Energy from Waste (EfW), Alternative Treatment and High Temperature Incineration facilities.
Our public sector and private healthcare customers include NHS Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups: hospitals, GPs, health clinics and pharmacies as well as ambulance and mental health services. We service care and nursing homes, dentists, veterinary surgeries, tattoo studios, universities, life sciences establishments, and research and development laboratories. As well as helping facility management, cleaning and washroom companies to achieve their waste environmental goals.
We help organisations to launch educational campaigns and are proud of our record in improving waste segregation; boosting recycling; diverting waste from landfill and bettering our customers’ environmental performance by cutting CO2 emissions.
From the moment we start working with you, we provide a bespoke and flexible service dedicated to meeting your clinical waste management needs. Founded on the free waste analysis audit we carry out, your customised service focuses on implementing the Waste Hierarchy. Our complimentary pre-acceptance tools are provided to help you ensure your organisation is compliant, whilst sending waste to the most environmentally-friendly and cost-effective facility.
Our flexibility, combined with the fact we own and operate a variety of industry-leading treatment facilities, means we can tailor collections based on the volumes of waste you produce, helping to reduce vehicle movements. Your carbon footprint is further reduced by our certified CarbonNeutral® fleet. We offset the carbon emissions of our vehicles through a reforestation programme to avoid adding to your carbon footprint.
Our treatment options include sending offensive waste to Energy from Waste facilities, where the incineration process generates green electricity for export to the National Grid. Infectious, orange bagged clinical waste is sent to our Alternative Treatment facility, where it is fed into an industrial shredder and rendered safe through a unique steam treating process, producing a finely shredded dry waste called flock, which can be used as Refuse Derived Fuel.
Highly-infectious materials, sharps bins, pharmaceutical, cytotoxic/cytostatic medicines, and anatomical waste will be sent to our High Temperature Energy Recovery Incineration facility. Not only does this divert waste from landfill, but the steam created is used to power a steam turbine to generate electricity.
The incineration of infectious waste is up to five times more expensive than the disposal of offensive waste in an Energy from Waste facility, while the Alternative Treatment of infectious waste is around twice as expensive compared to its disposal as offensive waste
Encouraging the correct segregation of waste, while ensuring no risks are taken with the disposal of infectious waste, can have a major impact on achieving budgetary savings.
All our facilities operate under strict Environment Agency permits.
We believe employee education is critical in ensuring all staff understand the do’s and don’ts of clinical waste disposal. We have a suite of educational and engagement programmes, including e-learning, to help promote best practice across your organisation.
Colour-coded and UN certified containers, sacks and wheeled bins are provided to help your staff easily and safely segregate different types of clinical waste and activities such as Waste Awareness Days help spread the education message.
Clinical waste is waste that requires special means of disposal to render it safe. It can be generated by a broad range of activities, from hospitals and GP surgeries to universities and research laboratories, nursing homes and dentists or veterinary surgeries.
It can include syringes and needles, out-of-date medicines, incontinence pads, medical gowns (PPE), dressings, oxygen masks sanitary waste, x-rays and even mercury.
The Environment Agency is the regulating authority and the Department of Health provides the necessary guidance for the regulations.
The safest and most compliant way is to talk to experts who provide clinical waste collection and disposal facilities.
Put simply, it is to keep people, animals and the environment safe. Special treatment is required because of clinical waste’s potential to infect or harm us. Accordingly, there are strict regulations for the collection and disposal of clinical waste.
No, it is divided into different types, depending on the nature of the waste. For example, it is really important to separate highly-infectious, infectious and non-infectious waste. Infectious waste is sent to our Alternative Treatment facility where it is rendered safe through a unique steam treating process, whereas offensive waste (also known as non-infectious waste) can be sent to our Energy from Waste facilities, ensuring zero waste to landfill and generating renewable electricity for export to the National Grid. The second process is a more cost-effective alternative, so clinical waste customers really benefit from understanding the importance of segregation, something we are keen to promote through our education programmes.
Highly-infectious materials are treated separately in our High Temperature Energy Recovery Incineration Facility.
No, the only waste which goes into our High Temperature Energy Recovery Incineration Facility is highly-infectious waste. There, the steam created in sent to our Energy from Waste facility to power a steam turbine, which generates electricity.
Not necessarily. There is a big difference between infectious clinical waste and non-infectious clinical waste, which we refer to as offensive waste. For example, items such as nappies, incontinence pads or disposable vomit and urine bowls from a non-infectious patient are classed as offensive waste and are suitable to be sent to our Energy from Waste facilities.
Infectious waste may, for example, be dressings from a patient or care home resident with an infection, or indeed the aprons, masks and gowns etc., worn by the person treating them. Those items must be treated as infectious waste and sent for Alternative Treatment.
Highly-infectious materials, such as sharps bins, cytotoxic or cytostatic waste, pharmaceutical and anatomical waste will go to our High Temperature Energy Recovery Incineration Facility.
The incineration of infectious waste is up to five times more expensive than the disposal of offensive waste in an Energy from Waste facility, so correctly segregating waste will have a major impact on achieving budgetary savings. Even the Alternative Treatment of infectious waste is around twice as expensive compared to its disposal as offensive waste.
Provided the sanitary waste did not come from someone with an infection or, for example, someone who is being treated with cytotoxic or cytostatic drugs for cancer, then it can be treated as offensive waste.
The challenges of staying compliant with all the necessary legislation are numerous and time-consuming. Working with a reputable and expert clinical waste management team of professionals ensures absolute compliance and can also help you achieve environmental goals, such as diverting waste away from landfill and reducing your carbon footprint.
It very much depends on your type of waste. We offer a pre-acceptance audit at no extra charge, once this has been undertaken, we can advise the most efficient and cost-effective treatments for your waste, always bearing in mind the need to be 100% compliant with all regulations. A typical audit will look at the types of waste and the volumes you generate, as well as the types of waste suitable for recycling, reprocessing and disposal.
Yes, as waste management specialists, we offer a full range of services, including food waste, mixed recyclables, general waste, paper cup recycling, confidential waste and other hazardous waste streams, including low-level radioactive wastes. For many of our larger customers we have implemented an organisation-wide total waste management service.
Broadly speaking, we have two types of customer. We work with NHS Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups, which includes health clinics, hospitals, GP surgeries, pharmacies; and also with larger research facilities and universities etc. In some cases we may base a waste manager on site to manage the initial programme.
We also offer clinical waste management for smaller organisations, such as care and nursing homes, dental surgeries, tattoo studios, veterinary surgeries etc.
We work closely with in-house teams and our pre-acceptance audit helps us establish the bespoke requirements for all our customers, no matter what their size.
Very closely indeed. It is only by understanding their environmental goals and priorities that we can introduce a bespoke total waste management service to meet those targets.
Clinical waste bins and sacks will vary depending on the different types of waste they are designed to contain. All our UN certified containers, bins and sacks are colour-coded and clearly labelled to help staff understand which items should be disposed of in each one.
Whenever necessary, we will provide extensive training and induction on any specialist waste equipment which is installed, for example, such as balers and compactors. We find involving staff helps to fully engage them in understanding what they are doing and why.
We will provide the necessary reporting data and certification for you to be able to prove correct compliance and full traceability and security. We keep accurate records and we find our customers really benefit from being able to see where improvements, such as increased recycling and reduced carbon footprint, have been achieved.
Peace of mind that your operation is fully compliant with all legislation and the knowledge that you are working with an award-winning company which guarantees the safe and secure disposal of all your clinical wastes. Our years of expertise and the fact we have our own in-house facilities enables us to provide services and solutions at cost-effective prices.