Sharps-waste-treatment Alternative

Richard Yelvington, a Jacksonville, FL, inventor, says he has developed a small device that, in achieving 350 °F, sterilizes medical-waste sharps and encapsulates them in the melting plastic of their syringes or the plastic sleeve of their sharps container.

The autoclave device is described as providing an inexpensive alternative to waste hauling or on-site incineration. Once treated, the plastic puck-like waste can be disposed of as Class D waste, Yelvington said.

Yelvington and two partners founded Imagination Medical Inc. in April 1996 and have been building prototypes, getting regulatory approval, and manufacturing a limited number of the machines, most of which have been exported.