Hazardous waste

It is important to consider the health risks associated with hazardous and medical waste disposal. For example, as a nation, do we want sanitary products and surgical dressings slowly rotting on a landfill site? Or would we rather shred such high calorific value materials to ensure their safe use via the Waste to Energy market?

Shredders can form part of turnkey waste treatment systems which enable contaminated materials to be safely cleansed and processed for reinsertion into the resource stream.

The relatively short lifespan of batteries means a large volume are discarded every day. But due to their heavy metal and toxic chemical content, their safe disposal is critical. A regulated shredding process forms a crucial part of a carefully-controlled recycling process, whereby the reclamation rates of valuable metals can be maximised and soil and water courses can be protected from contamination.

Often, by shredding arisings such as clinical waste, it is possible to liberate and extract valuable composite resources such as silicone absorption beads from sanitary products, which can be reused in the remanufacturing process.

Despite stringent waste segregation methodologies within the medical industry, the fast-paced, human-centric nature of the hospital environment means objects like sharps can sometimes end up in a bin meant only for surgical gowns or condemned linen. Shredding helps liberate and separate such materials from the incorrect stream.

Even when hazardous waste containers are to be incinerated, reliable handling equipment is required to ‘destroy’ these often heavily-contaminated materials. Shredding represents one of the safest disposal routes, even for metal and plastic drums filled with bio-waste, sludges, paints and other hazardous substances.