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USDA tests digester that claims to reduce prions to safe powder
KANSAS CITY (OsterDowJones)--The U.S. Department of Agriculture is testing a digester that is touted as being able to reduce pathologic waste to a safe powder, including prions, according to University of Wisconsin and Sterile Technology Industries Inc., websites.
Housed at the University of Wisconsin's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, the $900,000 unit is said to reduce animal carcasses, hoofs, hide, bones and all to little more than a sterile slurry, and it does it cheaper than incineration.
Sterile Technology Industries Inc., builds the waste-treatment product that gives hospitals and other users on-site elimination of pathologic waste without incineration, according to its website. That comes in handy, since the agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease, resists heat and many other forms of sterilization. The system uses a process of treating the waste with alkali and heat under pressure, the websites say.
The process destroys all pathogens, including proven in vitro destruction of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy agents that cause BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans as well as other prion diseases, according to the Sterile Technology website.
The digester, which has the appearance of a massive pressure cooker on wheels, not only makes short work of the prion, but from an environmental perspective, is a better solution than incineration, said a report on the university's website. It releases nothing into the atmosphere, and the sterile solution it produces provides nutrients for waste-water microbes in sewage treatment plants and alkalinity to counter the acidity that results from the biodegradation of sewage.
It helps laboratories by destroying formalin, glutaraldehyde and other fixing agents and fixed tissues, according to the company's site.
The process features very low cost of operation, as low as $0.03 a pound, as well as volume and weight reduction--100 percent on tissues and up to 98 percent for tissue with bones, the company's site says.
The alkali used in the process (sodium or potassium hydroxide) can be purchased through commercial chemical suppliers, the company says.
Date: 1/19/04
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