£30m hospital waste contract awarded

A Dublin-based company has been awarded a £30 million contract for the management of clinical waste from all publicly-funded hospitals and healthcare institutions in Ireland, North and South, well into the 21st century.

Sterile Technologies Ireland Ltd is to establish three plants - in Dublin, Antrim and the Munster region - to operate its "environmentally safe" waste treatment system, the first of its kind in Europe. It expects to employ a total of 66 people including 25 in Northern Ireland.

The STI plant at Antrim Area Hospital will cater for waste arising in the North only. A recovery/ recycling centre will also be located in the North. The Dublin plant will be at the Western Industrial Estate on the Naas Road. The location of the Munster plant has yet to be disclosed. The 10-year contract was awarded by the Joint Waste Management Board which is administered by the health authorities in Belfast and Dublin.

Forbairt has carried out a technical assessment of the system and has given it a clean bill of health, STI managing director Mr Des Rogers said. He added that the STI technology is in excess of the standards demanded by Irish or EU environmental legislation.

The STI "Chem-Clav" system is a machine designed to totally disinfect, render unrecognisable and make reusable all forms of medical waste not specifically requiring incineration (ie. pharmaceutical and chemotherapeutic waste).

The company said this "closed loop" process does not involve any combustion and is environmentally safe with no discharge to sewer and minimal discharge to the atmosphere.

Mr Rogers said the system can safely process and recycle 95 per cent of the estimated 10,000 tonnes of medical waste.

After disinfection, 90 per cent of that waste will be segregated for reuse into its component parts, mainly plastic, glass, metals and paper-based fuel. Just 10 per cent of waste will require a landfill facility.

Five per cent of hazardous waste, representing approximately 350 tonnes per year in both North and South, will be exported for incineration.

The Republic at present exports all its healthcare waste to the continent at a cost of £1,300 per tonne, while in Northern Ireland all clinical waste is being incinerated on some 11 hospital sites at a cost of £300 per tonne.

Mr Rogers said the STI solution would guarantee for a 10-year period a cost of healthcare/clinical waste disposal of £400 per tonne to both governments.

STI is a joint venture established by Mr Rogers's company, Waste To Energy Ltd, in partnership with Bovis Group, one of the world's largest engineering and construction firms (owned by P & O) and the Irish group, Bennett Construction, which represents Bovis.