COMPETITION RESULTS
The coordinating committee reviewed and quantitatively scored 58 preliminary designs submitted by contestants from around the world. Based upon this initial evaluation, 30 contestants were invited to submit complete descriptions of their concepts to an international panel of judges. Utilizing published criteria, the judges selected the three winning designs and the five that received honorable mention. Links to the descriptions of these eight concepts are available below, and in the near future, designs submitted by other finalists will be posted.
As with all new technologies, great care should be exercised in adapting them for local use in the treatment of medical waste. Adjustments may have to be made to compensate for variations in the volume of waste processed, availability of local resources, space limitations, and financial constraints. Since these are new designs, there is little or no information on how the technologies may perform under real-world conditions. Health Care Without Harm plans to conduct field tests of various designs in the coming period.
When considering any treatment method, careful attention must also be given to occupational safety, environmental protection, and public health issues. The following are examples of issues to consider when evaluating or modifying the posted designs:
- Grinding or shredding of waste prior to treatment should only be done in a manner that does not cause the release of potentially infectious aerosols;
- In areas where controlled landfills do not exist, treated sharps may have to be processed further to prevent their reuse and to minimize the risk of physical injuries to those that scavenge open dumpsites;
- Treatment areas should have sufficient ventilation to reduce odors and to prevent the accumulation of noxious or dangerous chemicals;
- Chemicals used to treat waste should be stored, transported, handled, and disposed of properly;
- Workers should be trained to appropriately handle waste, ensure the safe operation of the treatment system, and perform periodic maintenance;
- Staff should be provided with appropriate personal protective equipment such as gloves, aprons or face masks; and
- Mechanisms should be put in place to periodically monitor the performance of treatment systems to ensure that they are performing within acceptable parameters.
These and other factors should be taken into account to ensure that medical waste is treated and disposed of safely.
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Brief Design Descriptions
First Place
Portable, solar-powered autoclave (pdf file, 483k)
Team of Rhys Hardwick-Jones of the University of Sydney, Australia
Second Place
Boiling chamber with mechanical grinder and compactor (pdf file, 601 k)
M. G. Holliday of Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals, United Kingdom
Third Place
Lime treatment and encasement of the waste (pdf file, 225k)
Team of Prof. Mark Bricka, Prof. Todd French, Allissa Willis, Beth Hestor, Michael Bestor, and Holly Martin of Mississippi State University, USA
Honorable Mention
- Sterilizer using a Scheffler solar reflector (pdf file, 221k)
Team of Wolfgang Scheffler of Solare Bruecke, Germany
- Box-type solar cooker for disinfection (pdf file, 64k)
Vikrant Chitnis of Choithram Hospital and Research Center, India
- Treatment with lime solution in steel vessel (pdf file, 73k)
Team of Laura Robinson of North Carolina State University, USA
- Sterilizing chamber using steam from an accumulator and solar collector (pdf file, 267k)
Team of Carlos Fortune Cabello of the Universidad de Valparaiso, Chile
- Autoclave with internal shredder as part of an integrated medical waste treatment system (pdf file, 297k)
Team of Abhishek Jain of the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, India
Other Designs
- Hand-driven hammermill to shred waste for treatment by steam in a boiler;
- Anaerobic fermentation of waste, with fertilizer and biogas as by products;
- Solar drying and ozonation of non-sharps and baking of sharps in clay bricks;
- Mechanical shredding, compaction, and treatment by super-heated steam;
- Liquid or gaseous ozonation, combined with vermiculture treatment;
- Material separation, blender-maceration and fermentation in biogas plant;
- Ozonation/sonolysis treatment of waste under waster in steel chamber;
- Concrete caisson for burial and treatment of waste within layers of clay and lime;
- Treatment in deep burial pit with lime, anaerobic digestion, and chemicals;
- Bio-reactor and wood charcoal bio-filter to treat waste through digestion;
- Manual grinding and solar drying of most components of the waste stream;
- Decomposition in burial pit, solar heating and chemical treatment;
- Pulverizer-crusher, steam treatment, filter-drum centrifuge, and anaerobic reactor;
- Waste segregation, closed co-composting, shredding, steam and other methods;
- Chemical treatment of separated waste components with autoclaving;
- Metal encasement in which treatment is effected through multiple methods;
- Management of only needles and syringes through mechanical shredding;
- Chemical disinfection, UV irradiation, and steam treatment using a solar collector;
- Three-stage grinding, ozonation, UV irradiation, and saw dust solidification;
- Linear alkaline benzene sulfonate treatment with hammermill shredding.
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