Cytotoxic Waste Incinerators
Chemotherapy residues, contaminated consumables and PPE under 18 01 08* — hazardous, segregated, incineration-only.
Cytotoxic and cytostatic waste is the one pharmaceutical stream with no alternative endpoint. It is hazardous by classification, it must be incinerated, and it must never ride along in a general medicinal charge. Where a site already runs a permitted LitBurn, the question is not whether the machine can destroy it — it is whether the permit says it may, and that is a question worth settling before the first purple-lidded container arrives.
Four Models,
One Solution
The entry point to the LitBurn range. A 3.3 m³ primary chamber and three burners give continuous 125 kg/h destruction in a footprint that fits a standard yard bay, which makes it the usual choice for a single-site operator replacing skip hire rather than a multi-site waste contract.
The most specified unit in the range. Chamber volume rises to 5.5 m³ for 250 kg/h continuous throughput while the external width grows by only 230 mm over the LBI-125, so sites that outgrow the smallest unit rarely have to rework the slab or the building line.
A 9.6 m³ chamber — nearly double the LBI-250 — for medium-scale industrial waste destruction. At this size most operators pair the unit with heat recovery, because the thermal output during a full shift is large enough to displace a dedicated water heater.
The largest LitBurn: a 16.2 m³ chamber running 500 kg/h continuously. Specified where waste arrives faster than a batch unit can clear it — large manufacturing sites, industrial estates, and operators consolidating several smaller waste contracts onto one machine.
Which Model
Fits Your Volume
Pick a model to see what it clears in a day of cytotoxic & cytostatic waste.
A hospital pharmacy aseptic unit or an oncology day unit: a short shift a week clears 300 kg of sealed containment without a hazardous collection for that fraction.
18 01 08* must be named in the permit
Cytotoxic and cytostatic medicines are hazardous waste with their own code, and a permit covering 18 01 09 medicinal waste does not extend to them. Name 18 01 08* explicitly at application, or this stream stays outside the permitted scope whatever the unit is capable of.
Incineration is the required endpoint
There is no lawful landfill, maceration or downgrade route for cytotoxic and cytostatic waste. The classification exists because these compounds are hazardous at trace level, and destruction at temperature is what it demands.
Assume 1,100°C secondary retention
Several widely used cytotoxic agents are chlorinated or fluorinated and PVC containment adds to the total, so a cytotoxic charge should be assumed to exceed 1% halogenated organic content and declared at the 1,100°C secondary condition.
Segregation and containment stay clinical duties
Purple-lidded containment at the point of use, sealed and never reopened, is a clinical and pharmaceutical control. On-site incineration shortens the chain of custody after that point; it does not replace the discipline that starts it.
Why Burn It
On Site
4 things change on the day this stream stops leaving the site.
Incineration is the required route, not the convenient one
There is no landfill, maceration or downgrade option for 18 01 08* waste. Having the destruction capability on site removes the dependency on a hazardous collection for a stream that cannot wait for one.
Containment is never reopened
Purple-lidded containers and sealed bins go into the chamber closed. The control that started at the preparation isolator continues to the charge door without a single handling step in between.
Trace matters, so temperature matters
These compounds are hazardous at trace level, which is exactly why the destruction condition is specified rather than assumed. A declared 1,100°C secondary retention is the answer to a stream where partial destruction is not a partial result.
One less hazardous consignment chain
Hazardous waste consignment, licensed carriage and a third party's certificate all disappear for the fraction destroyed on site. What remains is a permitted run you witnessed and a residue classified under your own permit.
Dual-chamber unit, 1,100°C capable
Primary chamber running 850–1,200°C with a secondary chamber holding flue gas above 850°C for two seconds. Where the charge carries more than 1% halogenated organic content — PVC and PVdC blisters, chlorinated actives, fluorinated excipients — the secondary minimum rises to 1,100°C and the unit holds it as built rather than as an upgrade.
Front dual-door loading
The LBI range is charged through a front dual door at floor level, not lifted over a top rim. Quarantine cages, wheeled bins and pallet-decanted totes go in at the height they arrive at, which is what makes a returns hall workable without a hoist.
What Ships
With The Unit
Identical whichever stream it is specified for. The operating procedure changes; the machine does not.
Dual-chamber unit, 1,100°C capable
Primary chamber running 850–1,200°C with a secondary chamber holding flue gas above 850°C for two seconds. Where the charge carries more than 1% halogenated organic content — PVC and PVdC blisters, chlorinated actives, fluorinated excipients — the secondary minimum rises to 1,100°C and the unit holds it as built rather than as an upgrade.
Front dual-door loading
The LBI range is charged through a front dual door at floor level, not lifted over a top rim. Quarantine cages, wheeled bins and pallet-decanted totes go in at the height they arrive at, which is what makes a returns hall workable without a hoist.
IP6X control panel with cycle logging
PLC control with chamber thermocouples, interlocked charge door and a time-stamped temperature record per run. That record is the evidence behind a certificate of destruction — without it a certificate asserts a temperature nobody measured.
Burner set and fuel train
Configured for natural gas, LPG, diesel, biofuel or hydrogen, with three burners across the LBI range. Fuel choice is a site decision; the combustion condition is identical whichever is specified.
Coretex refractory lining
Monolithic castable lining rated for the full temperature range and for sustained running at the top of it. Replaceable in service rather than requiring the shell to be scrapped with it — relevant on a unit that may run shifts rather than single burns.
Stack, dispersion data and commissioning
Stack supplied to the height your site-specific dispersion assessment calls for, with the emissions data pack the permit application references, on-site commissioning, a witnessed first run and operator training for the staff who will hold the charge-door key.
How One Burn Runs,
Start To Finish
One run is one countable event, reconciled against a manifest and evidenced by a time-stamped temperature log.
One Cycle,
Start To Finish
Adds the 18 01 08* hazardous classification, segregated purple-lidded containment charged closed, and a permitted scope that has to name cytotoxic and cytostatic waste explicitly. Ash classification follows the permit, not the general-stream assumption.
Cytotoxic and cytostatic waste goes into purple-lidded rigid containment at the isolator, the ward or the pharmacy aseptic unit. Segregation is a clinical and pharmaceutical duty that precedes the incinerator and is not changed by it.
Containers are sealed, labelled with the 18 01 08* classification and moved to the charge point under the site's internal hazardous waste procedure. They are not opened, decanted or consolidated.
Sealed containers are charged through the front dual door unopened. No contact with the contents occurs at any point after the container was closed at the point of use.
The primary chamber runs 850–1,200°C and the secondary holds 1,100°C for two seconds where the charge carries more than 1% halogenated organic content — the normal assumption for a cytotoxic stream with PVC containment and chlorinated agents in it.
Residue is 3–5% mineral ash. Its classification follows the permit rather than the general-stream assumption, and should be agreed with the regulator at application stage rather than decided after the first run.
What You Can Burn —
And What You Can't
One run takes the whole stream without pre-sorting. What must never enter it is a short, hard list.
Yes: accepted in a run
No pre-sorting between these
- Cytotoxic and cytostatic medicines and residuesExpired, part-used and residual product in vials, infusion bags and syringes, charged in sealed containment rather than emptied first.
- Giving sets, lines and administration consumablesInfusion sets, lines, spikes and connectors carrying residual agent — the largest fraction of the stream by volume and the reason PVC content is assumed.
- Contaminated PPE from preparation and administrationGowns, gloves, sleeves, masks and overshoes from an aseptic unit or a treatment area, bagged at the point of use and charged bagged.
- Spill kits and contaminated absorbentsAbsorbent pads, granules and wipes used on a cytotoxic spill, together with the kit packaging, charged as a sealed unit.
- Sharps containers from cytotoxic administrationPurple-lidded sharps bins charged closed. The metal fraction reports to the ash as inert residue and nothing is decanted.
- Contaminated packaging and preparation wasteVial cartons, outer packaging and preparation-suite consumables that have been in contact with a cytotoxic agent and therefore carry the classification with them.
No: never charged
Not a permit question — these stay out
- Anything charged outside the permitted scope18 01 08* has to be named explicitly in the environmental permit. Where it is not, this stream does not enter the unit at all — the machine's capability is not the question, the permitted scope is.
- Bulk liquid cytotoxic preparationsStanding liquid in volume is a licensed hazardous liquids route. Residual product held in a vial, bag or line is in scope; a container of preparation is not.
- Compressed gas and pressurised devicesSealed vessels under heat, whatever the ward they came from. Back through the gas or device chain.
- Radioactive and radiolabelled therapeutic materialRadiotherapy and radiolabelled agents sit under a separate authorisation regime with their own disposal route, and no waste permit brings them into scope.
Can you legally burn cytotoxic & cytostatic waste on site?
Technically, yes: the chamber destroys almost everything on the accepted list at 850–1,200°C, and capability is rarely the constraint. Legally is a separate question. What your site is allowed to burn is set by your environmental permit from the Environment Agency, SEPA or NIEA and the waste codes written into it. The never-charged list is different again: those materials are out of scope for the unit or governed by a direction, and no permit wording brings them back in. Send us the codes you hold, or the ones you expect to apply for, and we will tell you which of this list they cover before anything is specified.
Send us your waste codesWhat size incinerator for 300 kg of cytotoxic waste a week?
Arithmetic on published model figures, not a customer reference. Your numbers go through the same steps.
How This
Was Worked Out
300 kg of cytotoxic arisings a week against the LBI-125's 125 kg/h = about 2.4 hours of running, or a short shift a week, leaving 9–15 kg of ash and removing the hazardous consignment chain for the fraction destroyed on site. Cytotoxic waste is light and voluminous — rigid containment sets the volume, not the contents. Size on how many purple-lidded containers a week produces, then check the weight.
9–15 kg a week
1,100°C — assumed halogenated
None — charged closed
0
Send your daily or weekly arisings and we will confirm the model, the run time and the permit route.
Related Products
& Services
Complementary equipment and engineering services for your process.
Cytotoxic & cytostatic waste Questions
Answered against the published figures for the models specified for this stream, not a generic range sheet.
A cytotoxic waste incinerator is a dual-chamber unit permitted to destroy medicines and contaminated materials classified as cytotoxic or cytostatic — waste code 18 01 08*, hazardous. In practice that covers chemotherapy preparation and administration waste, residual product in vials and giving sets, contaminated PPE and absorbents from a preparation suite, and any consumable that has been in contact with a cytotoxic or cytostatic agent. This stream is different from the rest of the pharmaceutical page in one important way: incineration is not the convenient route, it is the required one. There is no landfill option, no maceration option and no downgrade — the classification exists precisely because these compounds are hazardous at trace level, and destruction at temperature is what the classification demands. The combustion condition is 850–1,200°C in the primary chamber with two-second secondary retention above 850°C, rising to 1,100°C where the charge carries more than 1% halogenated organic content. Cytotoxic charges reach that threshold routinely — several widely used agents are chlorinated or fluorinated, and PVC giving sets and containment add to it — so the 1,100°C condition is the sensible declaration rather than the exception. Containment is charged closed. Purple-lidded rigid containers, sealed sharps bins and bagged preparation waste go into the chamber unopened, because the whole control philosophy for this stream is that the material is not handled again after it is sealed at the point of use. Nothing about having a unit on site changes that; it shortens the chain of custody, not the containment discipline.
300 kg of cytotoxic arisings a week against the LBI-125's 125 kg/h = about 2.4 hours of running, or a short shift a week, leaving 9–15 kg of ash and removing the hazardous consignment chain for the fraction destroyed on site. Cytotoxic waste is light and voluminous — rigid containment sets the volume, not the contents. Size on how many purple-lidded containers a week produces, then check the weight.
No. Cytotoxic and cytostatic waste is hazardous under 18 01 08* and must be segregated at the point of use, contained separately and destroyed under a permit that names that code. A permit written for 18 01 09 medicinal waste does not cover it, and the unit's capability is not the question — the permitted scope is.
Never. Purple-lidded rigid containers and sealed sharps bins are charged closed. The control philosophy for this stream is that the material is not handled again after it is sealed at the point of use, and a unit on site is only worth having if it preserves that.
850°C with two-second secondary retention as the baseline, but a cytotoxic charge should be assumed to exceed 1% halogenated organic content — several common agents are chlorinated or fluorinated and PVC containment adds to it — which raises the secondary minimum to 1,100°C. Declare the higher condition rather than assessing it per run.
That depends on the permit and should be settled at application stage, not after the first run. Where a charge included hazardous material the residue classification follows the permitted scope rather than the ordinary transfer-note assumption that applies to a general medicinal charge.
No. Segregation into cytotoxic containment at the isolator, the ward or the aseptic unit is a clinical and pharmaceutical duty that precedes any disposal decision. On-site incineration removes the collection dependency and shortens the chain of custody; it does not remove the discipline that starts the chain.
The LBI-125 covers most single-unit operations — 300 kg a week is a short shift of running. Because rigid containment sets the volume rather than the contents, size on how many purple-lidded containers a week you produce and then check the weight, not the other way round.
Ready to
Incinerate?
Send the stream, the volume and the site constraints. We will confirm the model, the permit route, and what the specification has to say to satisfy the regulator.
- Incineration is the required route, not the convenient one
- Containment is never reopened
- Trace matters, so temperature matters
- One less hazardous consignment chain