Macerating machines for the healthcare sector

Our client has developed a unique and patented range of macerating machines to dispose of pulp waste products such as sick bowls and the like, used in healthcare high risk environments from hospitals through to care homes.  For confidentiality we have not identified our client referred to below. However if you wish to make contact with our client to obtain further information, please let us know and we will endeavour to obtain the necessary permission.

The Customer’s Requirements

The healthcare sector has been using such macerators together with their hygiene and cleaning chemicals for some time now, but prior experience indicated that in many instances these presented a high infection risk to employees and these machines also experienced high levels of breakdowns and maintenance.

It was therefore an essential requirement in the designing of these machines and their associated hygiene and cleaning chemicals that they remain hygienically clean to ensure that there was a minimisation of infection control risk to employees, and also that these must achieve high levels of operating reliability and availability.

In respect to the hygiene and cleaning chemicals which have been used in many macerator applications, these have often been associated with the following operational problems:

• Products that did not provide effective cleaning and disinfection capabilities, increasing infection risk to end users.
• Damage to machines over time due to the corrosive nature of certain chemicals.
• High foaming levels causing blockage and damage to machine sensors, resulting in high levels of machine downtime and breakdowns.
• Products that were hazardous in nature, so presenting a health risk to users and also increasing the costs and regulatory burden for shipping to overseas markets.

The Bioguard Solution!

Recommend by a previous client, this customer contacted Bioguard to seek a customised solution to their hygiene and cleaning chemicals problems.

Initially we undertook a thorough hygiene review in order to fully  understand the real needs of our client and their end users. Having a clear view of these operating needs, we then found that via a relatively minor change to the formulation of our established Bioguard Disinfectant and Cleaning Solution, we could supply a product which, as described below, met all of the key features which were required. 

• Our independently tested product provides superior cleaning and disinfection capabilities, so minimising the infection risk to end users.
• Our product can be safely used on virtually any surface, so will not damage or degrade any machine components.
• By customising our product to make it low foam, it does not block or damage sensors.
• Our product is safe to use and non hazardous and therefore does not present a health risk to users and also does not impact the cost or regulatory burden for shipping to overseas markets.
• As an additional benefit, we added an odour eliminator to our formulation to address any potential problems due to the odorous nature of the waste being disposed of through these machines. 

his macerator and hygiene product is now in successful operation in the UK and certain overseas countries, and is marketed under our “dual branding” approach with “Powered by Bioguard” featuring on the labelling.

In certain countries where these macerators are operating, our client has also further developed their penetration into these markets by successfully selling our standard Bioguard range of hygiene and cleaning products for use elsewhere in these institutions, and this provides an important additional consumables revenue stream for both of our companies.

To learn more about this case study, or how our products could help your business please contact us.