Wolverhampton podiatrists to use Bio-Bin^®                                            

Podiatry Manager Pat Hogan and her staff at Wolverhampton PCT have been concerned for some time about the amount of their single use stainless steel implements that end up in landfill each year. During our work with her over the past six months Pat has recognized that Bio-Pax^® will solve this problem. By working in conjunction with Heeley Surgical we will not only be able to supply instruments to Pat in the Bio-Bin^®, but also deliver them to her whilst at the same time collecting her used Bio-Bin^®, thus saving on truck journeys and reducing damage to the environment. Once collected, the waste can then be heat-treated by rotoclave and any stainless steel material can be recovered and sent for re-smelting so it can be used to make new products.

This massively reduces the need to send waste to landfill at a high cost to the customer. Pat’s staff will conduct a trial of the system in the coming weeks and we are continually working with them to create a system which suits their needs.

Bio-Bin^® a success in Imperial College                          

While we were visiting customers in London recently we called into the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London where Research Technician Lisa Ingram has been successfully using the yellow Bio-Bin^® in her lab for over a year. Around 40 of Lisa’s staff are using the 6 litre for disposal of pipettes and the 2 litre for bench-top tip disposal. Lisa has found that the Bio-Bin^® requires far less storage space in the lab than their previous plastic containers and feels they have helped the NHLI to significantly reduce its carbon footprint. Lisa is also keen to trial the larger sizes once they become available.

Progress on larger sizes

We are now a step closer to production of the 10, 20 and 30 litre Bio-Bin^® after receiving the tooling for these sizes. We have produced initial prototype samples

GSK order Bio-Bin^®

As a result of working together with Dhilum Alahkoon from Fisher Scientific, pharmaceutical leaders GlaxoSmithKline are now using the 1, 2 and 6 litre orange Bio-Bin^® in their labs following successful trials. The Bio-Bin^® has been introduced to more labs at GSK and we hope to generate more interest from this.

NHS Lincolnshire Teaching PCT have received an initial delivery of an order for several thousand orange Bio-Bin^® in a variety of different sizes and are planning to pilot their use over the next few weeks at a community healthcare team base. The pilot will initially be undertaken by a team of around 30 community nurses. The pilot will be used to inform community healthcare waste management options and develop protocols of wider use of the Bio-Bin^® for infectious waste segregation, storage and transport. We will be continually working with Community Nursing Manager Susan Ombler and Waste Manager Ray Wright to define the specific needs of the nurses and tailor our service towards the requirements of Primary Care Trusts.

Portsmouth Microbiology use BioBin^®                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

After successful trialing the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Portsmouth Queen Alexandra Hospital is now using the yellow Bio-Bin^®. Lab Manager Colin Walker and his staff are using the yellow 5 litre for bench-top disposal of all microbiological waste including plastic loops, pipette tips, plastic pastettes, cotton-tipped swabs and latex agglutination cards. Colin also plans to report their use of Bio-Bin^® at the Hampshire Safety Forum which will enable lab managers from the surrounding area to find out more details of how the Bio-Bin^® is being used within the department.