Our Technology

Collection

The storage and transportation of clinical waste is strictly controlled from the moment it is first placed in a waste container at a facility like a hospital or a laboratory. 

Waste is sorted into appropriate colour-coded containers/bags, logged, weighed and time stamped before being placed in specially designed industry standard clinical waste bins at site where it was used.

This comprehensive process ensures that the waste is properly logged in sealed containers.

It would typically then be moved to a waste transfer station, where it may be bulked up into specialist containers like Eurocarts or pallets before being transported to a Fornax facility in a specialist waste management vehicle.

Clinical waste treated in the facility will include used needles and blades, scrubs, and surgical materials from clinical theatres.

Management

On arriving at the Fornax facility, the specialist vehicles delivering the clinical waste will be unloaded through screened dock levellers, which mean the containers are immediately inside the facility from the second they are unloaded.  Once unloaded, the sealed containers would be individually weighed and the paperwork checked to ensure the waste acceptance procedure is being followed. 

This would provide a full audit trail before the waste is accepted by Fornax for high temperature thermal treatment.

All clinical waste material would then be stored inside the containers within the Fornax facility where it would be routinely inspected as part of our operating procedures.

Any rejected waste/containers would be reloaded onto the vehicle or placed in the quarantine area inside our facility for collection. 

Regulations state that clinical waste must be disposed of safely within a set timescale to avoid degrading of the waste or leakage of any kind. The audit process and warehouse systems would ensure all clinical waste is disposed of within this set time period.

Disposal

Clinical waste material would then be carefully fed into the treatment facility alongside hazardous waste and heat treated at between 850°C and 1400°C in an enclosed environment under carefully controlled conditions, converting the waste material into inert gases and small particulates, which would then be captured by best-in-class abatement systems to prevent their release to air. 

Ash is also produced. This is collected from the process in a covered skip and disposed of at a specialist hazardous waste ash facility.

Our emissions will be continually monitored around the clock to ensure we meet the UK and EU’s new and very stringent air quality standards.

Fornax has already deployed remote monitoring equipment to measure particulate matter and NOx gas emissions. We aim to work with local universities and colleges to produce meaningful real-time data which can analysed and shared.

The high temperature thermal treatment process is proven to reduce the volume of the waste by over 90%. Critically, it’s the high temperatures that are maintained in the system, which destroy harmful dioxins with a 99.5% destruction efficiency. The heat generated by the process will be recycled into the local district heating system for use by businesses and organisations based within a mile of one of our facilities. 

Collection

Hazardous waste will be sampled, tested, analysed and classified by a specialist waste management firm at a hazardous waste transfer station. All details including results, description and classification will be provided to Fornax prior to arrival. 

It will then be brought onto site by our customers – specialist waste management companies – in a strictly regulated process using specially designed waste management vehicles.

Management

Hazardous waste would be brought to site within sealed airtight containers carried by specialist waste management vehicles. On arriving at the Fornax facility, the hazardous waste will either be unloaded through a separate set of screened dock levellers to the clinical waste or, for curtain sided vehicles, unloaded in the yard and then taken inside the facility immediately. This means the waste streams are kept separate and all containers are taken inside the facility straight away. 

Fornax facilities will include an on-site laboratory, and our team will include chemists trained and skilled in the management of hazardous waste. Upon arrival, each container, drum etc. will again be sampled, tested, analysed and classified. 

The onsite results will be compared to the pre-acceptance information provided by the customer. Both sets of results need to match in order for the waste to be accepted at site. 

Once accepted the hazardous waste will be segregated into the appropriate storage area depending upon the waste type.

This segregated storage system in our specially designed warehouse ensures the different waste types are contained and stored separately until the appropriate time when they are heat treated together. 

Disposal

Fornax then processes the accepted hazardous waste materials via high temperature thermal treatment.

The wooden pallets and yellow Eurocarts are then cleaned at the specialist cleaning point within our facility and returned to our customers for re-use. 

The use of best available abatement techniques ensures emissions are controlled and remain within the safe levels outlined by the European Union (Best Available Techniques Reference Document for Waste Incineration 2019).