Odessa company goes to waste

Positive Impact Waste Solutions has sold its medical waste processors from China to Pennsylvania to Europe.

But, now, it’s got a major client in its hometown.

The Odessa company has been in business since 1999, when it bought the design for a waste processor from its inventor, company president Tim Spencer said. After going through several incarnations, he hopes to have found success with the PIWS MMT 3000 On-site, a machine that allows hospitals to break down and treat medical waste on their premises.

“We really think this unit will probably be the biggest seller we have,” he said.

Hospitals can process their own medical waste, which can include everything from syringes and surgical knives to body parts, by loading it into a large bucket that’s dumped into a hopper where it’s pushed down by a “ram” into a grinder. It’s then ground up and mixed with a dry chemical sterilant called Cold-Ster. It’s then sent directly to the hospital’s trash compacter, where it’s hauled off to standard landfill.

“It takes about 30 minutes to process,” Spencer said. “It’s just grinding and mixing and coating all the waste with the dry chemical.”

The company first leased a unit to Hendrick Health System in Abilene. And last week, a lease with Medical Center Hospital in Odessa was approved.

The hospital will pay Positive Impact $3,600 a month to use the machine and about $400 a month for the dry chemical, Spencer said.

The company will maintain the unit, but MCH employees will operate it. Positive Impact says it only takes between five and 10 minutes of manpower per load.

“The only thing you have to do is follow the prompts on a computer screen,” said Dan Culbertson, Positive Impact’s vice president of manufacturing.

 The system could save the hospital 30 percent over its former medical waste disposal agreement, Spencer said. That agreement with Lake Forest, Ill.-based Stericycle, requires the waste to be transported by truck to a transfer station in Lubbock. It’s then transported to either the Dallas suburb of Garland or to Utah, depending on what type of waste it is.

Along with expense, Spencer said MCH could be liable for any accidents or cleanups that occur involving the waste as long as it’s being hauled.

Tony Ruiz, MCH chief operating officer, said the decision to go with Positive Impact made sense.

“We like to support local companies as much as possible,” he said. “It’s one of those situations where we can do that and save the hospital some money.”

Ruiz said MCH used Positive Impact years ago when it used a mobile waste-processing unit. But the mobile unit only came by a couple times a week. Now the hospital can dispose of the waste whenever it wants.

“This way, we can dispose of it on a daily basis and keep waste to a minimum,” he said.

And, if the processor breaks down, Positive Impact has a machine at its shop in the Odessa industrial park that can serve as a backup until it’s repaired.

Having local customers is beneficial for the company, as well. Spencer said he recently had to take a group of foreign clients to Abilene to see the processor in action. Soon, he’ll be able to “showcase” it without leaving Odessa.

“I’m from Odessa,” he said. “We take a lot of pride in Odessa. We knew we wanted to manufacture it here. That was real important to us and still is.”

In 2005, Positive Impact sold the contracts on the mobile processing business to Stericycle. While it no longer provided processing services, it continued to develop the processing units, eventually coming up with larger and smaller versions of the fixed units. MCH and Hendrick are using the smaller units, which process 400 pounds of waste per hour. The larger units process up to 2,000 pounds an hour.

But luckily for the company, which Spencer owns with wife Melinda Spencer, oil prices shot up during the years it wasn’t contracting on medical waste. Positive Impact instead concentrated on manufacturing components for oil and gas drilling rigs.

But in the past year, Spencer said the development of the small mobile processor has given Positive Impact a new angle to get back in the medical waste business. Which came at a good time, since oil prices have been on a roller coaster ride.

A year ago, Spencer said medical waste made up 15 percent of his business. Now it’s up to 80 percent.

The drop in oil and gas prices has caused Positive Impact to lay off six of it’s 21 employees, but Spencer said it could have been worse if not for the diversification provided by building and servicing medical waste processors.

“Fortunately, when one (business) goes down, the other goes back up again,” he said.

Now the company has the task of going up against Stericycle, which Culbertson said has a “monopoly” on the medical waste disposal business. But, by allowing hospitals to dispose of waste themselves, he feels they could be on to something.

“They can’t compete with us on this new unit,” he said. “It’s a way to get our foot back in the door without having to go toe-to-toe with Goliath.”

The company started out with several investors, including Spencer’s father-in-law, the late Odessa Mayor Bill Hext. After Hext’s death in 2001, the Spencers bought out the other investors.

Along with the ups and downs of the business world, Culbertson said it took six years for Positive Impact to get its dry chemical approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.

“It was a huge undertaking,” he said. “The federal government was not easy to please.”

But now, the company is building processors and is ready to roll, and Spencer said he expects it to be his biggest seller. He’s seeking clients among the hospitals on Positive Impact’s old mobile unit routes throughout Texas.

“It’s been slower going than we expected,” he said. “We think this new unit is really going to take us to the next level.”