ASHLAND, Ky. — A million dollar facility sterilization is facility opening in northeast Kentucky with the aim of handling post-patient medical waste.

Medical Waste Disposal Services has located in Boyd County's Paul Coffey Industrial Park near Coalton. Accu Medical Waste Services President Jim Parks told The Independent (http://bit.ly/15rgfd1 ) the facility is designed to super saturate with steam up to 50 tons a day of waste items.

"There is zero pollution that comes from this facility. You could drive by and never know it is there," Parks said.

Victor Ward, who will run the Boyd County plant, said the process isn't labor intensive. A standard industrial boiler provides all of the steam needed to heat the inner contents of the medical waste packages to 280-degrees, he said, explaining the facility's flow of material from loading doors into the autoclave before being compacted into truckload-sized loads and hauled to a nearby landfill.

"Once it comes out of here it's considered just regular waste. It's completely sterile," he said.

Medical waste arrives in purpose-designed lined, cardboard containers and is then loaded into lined metal carts wheeled into the massive chamber, which is locked on both ends and super saturated with steam.

While the initial loads will be processed by Ward and one laborer, Ward said the company could ultimately employ 20 to 30 more and maintain 24-hour operations.

The company is opening the site with no tax or financial incentives for the new facility.

"We paid for the whole thing," Parks said.

Information from: The Independent, http://www.dailyindependent.com