Five years after it was built the hospital's high-tech waste disposal unit is still costing around $1,000 a day to run.

King Edward VII Memorial Hospital Chief Executive Stephanie Reid said her team was working hard to reduce costs by training a local man to take over from a consultant who is still there after the bio-oxidiser was installed in 1999.

She said: “I can't give you a set time of when he will take over but it will be some time soon. There are a thousand codes to deal with - he has to know them all like the back of his hand.”

Mrs. Reid said there was only one consultant left from the team of four which were there in 1999.

The sophisticated unit breaks down hospital waste by steaming it to extremely high temperatures and turning it into oxygen.

Mrs. Reid said the machine was far cleaner than the previous incinerator which used to pour out soot which covered neighbourhood roofs.

She said the new machine burned more than 800 pounds of waste in a single day and running costs had already been cut by 20 percent.

Further savings can be made by running the machine on fuel rather than electricity.

“We have to do further tests to convince us that we would get the same level of efficiency out of the machine,” said Ms Reid.

“The other thing you need to recognise is that it heats our water. We use thousands of gallons of water.”

“If you hear costs of a thousand dollars a day it could be close to that. But we do our best to use it in a cost effective manner.”

She said the machine, which also provides the hospital with its own oxygen, had been given the thumbs up on environmental standards by local and Canadian scientists and was producing residue purer or comparable to that of the Tynes Bay incinerator.

Health Minister Nelson Bascome said he didn't know what the $1,000 a day figures were based on.

He said: “From an environmental aspect I would say I am happy with it. It doesn't create the pollution that existed before.” About the running of the machine he said: “I would hope there is a time schedule as to when we will have Bermudians trained for the job.”

However, in November 1999 Mr. Bascome had said that the decision to buy the machine, which was ordered by the previous government, was ‘a poor management decision'.

He was speaking after the company which made the bio-oxidiser went bankrupt leaving the four on-site expats on their own.

However at the May 1999 unveiling ceremony Mr. Bascome had praised the previous government for supporting the project - which along with new boilers, chillers and an oxygen generating system cost around $10 million - and he said it could be an example for Bermuda.