CAMEC INTEGRATED SYSTEMS FOR THE TREATMENT OF INFECTIOUS MEDICAL WASTE
The proper treatment of medical waste generated by facilities engaged in medical activities such as prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and research is a legal requirement and a fundamental safeguard for public health. It necessitates the implementation of strict safety protocols essential for preventing accidents and contamination while ensuring compliance with current regulations. CAMEC designs and manufactures customized plants for the treatment of medical waste, capable of handling even the most hazardous hospital waste—specifically, waste that poses an infectious risk. These systems enable facilities handling such materials to transform special waste into shredded mass comparable to municipal solid waste, all in complete safety. Here is how this process works.
Stages of medical waste treatment
The first step in the proper management of healthcare waste is its correct differentiation. This must be carried out directly by the personnel working in each facility to separate medical waste that can be treated as municipal waste (such as packaging, kitchen scraps, waste collected in restrooms or corridors, and so on) from hazardous waste.
Once this initial sorting is completed, hazardous waste follows specific treatment procedures necessary for shredding and sanitization, eliminating its bacterial load. When this type of waste reaches the treatment facilities, the process unfolds in three distinct phases:
– Handling and loading of potentially infectious material into the shredder hopper
– Shredding and subsequent volume reduction using specialized shredders (such as the CAMEC GRS 480 single- rotor shredder)
– Sterilization of the shredded mass through insertion into a sterilization tunnel where high temperatures eliminate bacterial contamination
Each of these successive steps must be carried out sequentially using sealed containers to ensure that no material leaks or escapes during the various treatment stages. Transportation is performed using special stainless steel screw conveyors, and the shredder hopper is equipped with a guillotine- style door that seals the loading inlet as soon as the material is fed inside.
This guarantees that no potentially contaminated material is released during the shredding phase.
The processed hospital waste, which initially retains its hazardous characteristics, must then be transferred to the sterilization tunnel in a controlled manner. The plant’s design ensures contamination prevention and requires the use of specialized containers. Only once the material has been subjected to high temperatures for specific time intervals can it be considered fully sterilized and thus potentially disposable as regular municipal solid waste (MSW).
The integrated management of these processing stages is essential for preventing contamination and completing the entire procedure quickly and safely, eliminating the risk of infection. This is
why CAMEC’s integrated systems, designed to customize the handling, loading and shredding of waste, offer an effective solution. These systems enable hazardous waste treatment plants to achieve impeccable performance by reducing processing times and automating the various treatment phases, minimizing the need for manual intervention by operators.
This allows medical waste to be transformed into waste with characteristics comparable to ordinary municipal solid waste efficiently and safely, without risks to public health or the personnel working in the waste treatment plant.
For more information about CAMEC’s customized solutions for the treatment of infectious medical waste, contact our team of experts and discover our solutions for waste loading, shredding and sterilization.
🌐 www.camec.net
