Southport firm Inciner8 delivered an emergency order from the United Arab Emirates for four high-capacity burners when COVID-19 medical and hazardous waste levels soared. Tony McDonough reports

Merseyside manufacture Inciner8 has built new incinerator systems for the disposal of coronavirus-infected waste in record time to meet an urgent overseas order.

An emergency order was placed for four high-capacity burners when medical and hazardous waste levels soared, as COVID-19 cases spiked in hospitals in the United Arab Emirates.

Inciner8, based in Southport, was able to produce a series of COVID-19 incinerators, developed video-based installation tutorials, installed a range of remote monitoring systems, and organised with the Etihad Aviation Group for them to be transported by air.

The firm was able to deliver the systems, capable of burning up to 1,000 kilos of waste an hour, for 10 hours every day, in just under two weeks. After being air freighted by Etihad, teams were able to install the incinerators at several hospitals throughout Abu Dhabi and Dubai, in a matter of days.

Ghazi Sadledein, international sales manager for Inciner8, said: “This is atypical to the usual process of installing one of our incinerators overseas. Usually, without global travel restrictions, we would ship-freight the individual components of an incinerator and send out an engineer who would work with the team on the ground to build and install the system.

“During the process, the engineer would train the team in how to safely load waste, what should and shouldn’t go into a burner, how to maintain a safe capacity and much more.

“But due to the urgent nature of this request, and with the extra challenge of international lockdown due to COVID-19, we have had to take different steps, instead opting for air-freight and undertaking our tutorials via video conference and pre-recorded means.”

The bespoke order also had to be configured to specific weightings and dimensions in order to be transported safely. Etihad Cargo, the cargo and logistics arm of the Etihad Aviation Group, and the national carrier to the UAE, was appointed to transport the incinerators.

To maintain social distancing rules currently in place in the UK, Inciner8 developed a series of tutorials for logistics staff at Heathrow Airport to safely load the systems onboard.

Ghazi added: “We have had to implement as much plug and play technology into these systems to make them as simple as possible to install in the UAE, but understanding the intricacies of correctly packaging them for a safe flight added another layer of complexity to this order.

“Our ability to overcome this, and with such a short timeframe presented to us, is demonstrative of why we have a reputation for being an international manufacturer which can immediately mobilise, especially in such situations as we see in this COVID-19 era.”

Inciner8 has previously shipped its incinerators around the world to tackle epidemics such as SARS and Ebola, and its products are used in more than 170 countries.