New Page 1
By: AllPennyStocks.com
Human beings, a wise man once said, are intellectual creatures, with a spiritual
component, living in physical bodies. All of the above, however, are flawed and
imperfect – and one day, at least physically, we may well break down and need
repair from the medical community.
The term “medical waste” refers to waste products that cannot be considered
general waste, produced from health-care premises, such as hospitals, clinics,
doctors’ offices, labs and nursing homes. One is disturbed to learn of newscasts
containing images of syringes, plasma bags and used specimen containers washing
up on beaches the world over, many of them dumped illegally because hospital
staff members were stumped as to what to do with them.
The problem these days is particularly acute, with efforts to curb the spread of
the H1N1 flu virus being redoubled worldwide, resulting in a ramping up in the
number of discarded needles.
In 2006, an estimated eight million people in the U.S. administered three
billion injections at home annually. This figure is expected to grow by 2016, to
the point where 21 million Americans – many of them diabetics -- will administer
eight billion injections.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), medical facilities
generate anywhere from 600,000 to one million tons of medical waste annually. Up
to 15% poses environmental risks, and while state regulations are in place, the
risk of medical wastes from individuals is unchecked. An Associated Press
investigation found that prescription drugs had been found in the drinking water
of 41-million Americans, to say nothing of reports of over-the-counter
medications like acetaminophen and ibuprofen.
Suffice to say, the problem of waste is a huge one for our health and
environment, and a potentially lucrative one for companies who innovate to bring
the problem under control. Only two years ago, more than 1.5 billion pounds (or
five pounds per person) of biomedical waste was generated in the U.S., costing
over $3.5 billion to remove and destroy. Internationally, the global commercial
medical waste market is estimated at five times the U.S. market with an
approximate market value of $6.5 billion.
In total, the U.S. solid waste industry managed approximately 545 million tons
of waste as of 1999. Of the total, about 374 million tons, or 68 per cent, was
sent to landfills; 31 million tons, or five per cent, was incinerated. Only 140
million tons, or 27 per cent, was recycled.
But the industry is a fairly restricted one, what with larger waste management
firms buying up smaller rivals. The latest such transaction involved sector
leader Stericycle (Nasdaq: SRCL), headquartered in Lake Forest, Illinois, which
in the first week of December, completed the acquisition of Midwestern-based
MedServe, and making it a wholly-owned subsidiary.
SCRL prides itself on a full repertoire of services geared to protecting the
environment once the patient has been looked after, including medical waste
disposal and sharps disposal management, product recalls and retrievals,
compliance training, medical safety product sales, and high-volume notification
services.
Stericycle also boasts that its sharps disposal management, featuring re-usable
containers, has prevented millions of plastic containers from ending up in
landfills. Besides the company’s strong stand against incineration, SRCL points
to its patented Electro Thermal Deactivation (ETD) treatment system, which uses
an oscillating field of low-frequency radio waves to heat waste to temperatures
that destroy pathogens without melting any plastic content. The ETD process,
company literature goes on to say, doesn't emit anything into the air or water,
and reduces waste volume.
The deal Stericycle made with MedServe boosted the company’s fortunes to a new
52-week high for its stock price. SRCL reached $58.34 on December 7, a level
from which it’s crept back since, but still way above its year-long trough of
$44.36 recorded last February, when many markets throughout the world were still
quite sick.
Still, the SRCL-MedServe pact did little to resolve the concerns of
environmental advocates. They're stressed that Stericycle's methods for dealing
with medical waste create different kinds of waste. Each day, tens of thousands
of the company's carbon-emitting trucks and vehicles make the rounds collecting
bio-hazardous materials from medical facilities of every size and scope across
the country.
These concerns have led to a push by rival companies, big and small, to make
their efforts more Earth-friendly. One of them, Colorado-based BioMedical
Technology Solutions Holdings Inc. (OTCBB:BMTL) has been focusing on producing
solutions for not only small quantity generators like doctors, dentists and
veterinary clinics.
One of the problems of hauling away medical waste is that it costs hospitals
roughly five times as much as ordinary rubbish. Doctors' offices pay even more.
Treating that waste, using more traditional methods, also increases airborne
pollutants. BMTL claims to have a solution, in its Demolizer® point-of-care
disposal systems, which eliminate the negative environmental impact rampant in
transportation based disposal programs including significant fuel consumption
and resulting emissions, landfill dangers and toxic incineration consequences.
Demolizer uses a repeat business model with the Demolizer®II dry heat waste
disposal unit (the razor) and the collector (the razor blade) providing the user
a long-life, cost effective and simple to use method to safely dispose of
typical sharps and red bag waste at the point of care. No pathogens are spread
through the air, and no by-products.
As an investment, one should be mindful of the uniqueness of the product, that
there is very little competition out there for BMTL.
The patented technology has been around since the early 1990s, and taken over by
BMTL in 2005 from Thermal Waste Technologies, having been successfully used more
than 300,000 times. The next year, BMTL introduced the Demolizer® II, a
reconfigured, improved version of the technology. With several patents pending
both domestically and internationally, the Demolizer technology is either
approved or exceeds the requirements for treatment and disposal in 48 states
after comprehensive review by as many as 79 local and state governmental
agencies.
Outside of the traditional medical/dental/veterinary marketplace which the
Company estimates has approximately 1,000,000 applications, there are numerous
large applications in emergency response, hospitality (hotels, cruise ships),
public venues (sports stadiums, convention centers, airports) and of course, the
home environment. In fact, the Company has an installation of their patented
system currently at Coors field in Denver and a pilot demonstration ongoing at
Krogers Pharmacy.
Biomedical’s ledger has also been singing, a particular achievement during a
recession year. First-quarter net revenues increased 157% to $359,305 over the
same quarter the year before, a hike that reflects the success of the company's
new sales and marketing division, HealthCare Sales Professionals, Inc., launched
in January 2009. Q2 of 2009 revenues also came in at $365,211 in 2009 as the
Company continued to make strides with their distribution networks and sales
volumes.
Best news of all for small-cap investors, BMTL’s stock price is positively
bargain-basement, with that kind of diamond-in-the-rough quality about it. Early
this month, the price plumbed a 52-week low of 26 cents, a gulch from which it’s
on the mend (to use a medical analogy) to about 45 cents, but a far cry from its
52-week peak of $1.15 achieved last July. It’s an opportunity that should at
least be examined closely.
The world of waste management is a fascinating one, given our human nature to
throw things away. Companies that innovate to help manage what we do throw away
are worth looking at, especially if those firms are in the early and growing
stages. Any efforts at keeping investors’ pockets full – and landfills empty –
should be saluted, and rewarded.
About AllPennyStocks.com:
AllPennyStocks.com is a website devoted to Canadian and American Stocks and
Penny Stocks. Some features in the website include quotes, news and charts. The
site also offers weekly write-ups of financial news, weekly penny stocks to
watch, daily top 50 penny stocks info, technical analysis, a portfolio manager,
a section for visitors to input their own penny stock picks, as well as an
elaborate amount of information for beginning investors. Visitors can sign up to
the AllPennyStocks.com mailing list to receive more penny stock articles, stock
profiles and more. AllPennyStocks.com is a well developed and recognized
financial site among the investment community.
Disclosure:
AllPennyStocks.com has been compensated fourteen thousand five hundred dollars
by the Company for its efforts in presenting the BMTL profile on its web site
and distributing it to its database of subscribers as well as other services. A
full disclaimer on BMTL can be found at: http://www.allpennystocks.com/aps_us/company_spotlights/archives/bmtl.asp.
