Photo | Courtesy of New England Disposal Technologies
Workers from New England Disposal Technologies disinfect an ambulance.
August 27, 2020
COVID Stories
COVID Stories: Sutton disposal company shifts to disinfecting against coronavirus
Photo | Courtesy of New England Disposal Technologies
New England Disposal Technologies now offers comprehensive COVID cleaning services.
By Devina Bhalla
As an essential business dedicated to cleaning oil spills and disposing of hazardous waste, New England Disposal Technologies, Inc. of Sutton was primed to add coronavirus disinfecting to its offered services.
“Being an emergency response provider, getting into the emergency response work for COVID seemed natural for us,” said President and General Manager Michael Robertson.
In early March, NEDT started researching different disinfecting systems for combating COVID, deciding on Halosil International from Delaware. It bought six machines from Halosil, getting the equipment in the beginning of April.
There was a waiting list for the equipment, but as a first responder for the state, NEDT was able to get bumped up on the list, said Robertson.
This system has a Log 6 Kill Rate, which means it reduces 1 million bacteria to one and destroys the virus to 99.9999%. The disinfectant uses hydroperoxide and silver; the hydroperoxide breaks apart the bacteria, and the silver kills it.
Typically, this equipment is used in hospital operating rooms. NEDT has made it more portable, bringing it to locations needing disinfecting, said Robertson.
Photo | Courtesy of New England Disposal Technologies
Employees from New England Disposal Technologies have switched to helping the company's long-term clients with COVID disinfection.
NEDT first fogs the infected space and then ventilates it. A typical space can be reoccupied in roughly two hours.
The fog is a dry mist that does not wet surfaces or leave a residue, filling the entire space of a room with 100% contact on everything inside. This allows it to be safe to use in spaces with electronics, said Robertson.
This system and disinfectant is on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s List N of products approved to combat COVID.
“The other thing too was that we wanted to make sure that we did everything in our power to ensure the safety of our employees. So, we have chosen a system that allows that, and we have precautions in place that keeps our employees safe,” said Robertson.
Photo | Courtesy of New England Disposal Technologies
New England Disposal Technologies was able to be prioritized for cleaning equipment.
A lot of the COVID disinfecting work NEDT has done has been for state agencies, but it also has disinfected spaces for places like the Boston Medical Center, manufacturing plants, trucking companies, and some residential clients.
NEDT saw a need, wanted to be able to assist those agencies it has emergency contracts with, and wanted to assist with virus containment and mitigation, said Robertson.
It now offers emergency COVID disinfecting services and precautionary disinfecting services in addition to its normal services including chemical disposal, tank and industrial cleanings, spill response, remediation of contaminated properties. Precautionary services allow clients to schedule cleanings in advance.
Because of the pandemic, NEDT did see a decrease in its other service lines.
“The COVID work helped us fill the void that we were seeing in other services lines during the pandemic,” said Robertson.
Photo | Courtesy of New England Disposal Technologies
New England Disposal Technologies has offered COVID cleaning for a variety of clients.
The demand for COVID disinfecting has slowed down from the beginning of the pandemic, but this decrease has been met with the recovery of demands for other NEDT services.
“As the reopening moves forward, we’re starting to see increased orders for our other services,” said Robertson.
It is currently maintaining a good balance between COVID emergency work and their typical services.
“We’re seeing a proportional decrease in the COVID emergency work as we see our regular work increase,” said Robertson.
However, it does anticipate that its COVID disinfecting services will be necessary into the future and will need to add some additional staff once the normal business has fully recovered, said Robertson.
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