Additionally, while autoclaves require external water input, modern converters utilize the moisture content already present in the conversion cell to generate steam sterilization conditions.

Converter technology is an environmentally friendly alternative to other traditional means of waste disposal that include incineration, plasma arc, and landfill dumping in that waste conversion results in a small carbon footprint, avoids polluting emissions into the atmosphere, and results in a usable end product such as biofuel, soil compost, or building material (see also Refuse-derived fuel).

Hospitals are a large beneficiary of converter technology, which allows for the immediate treatment of potentially infected hazardous waste at its source.

In addition to the marked improvement in sanitation, on-site treatment of hazardous waste allows operational cost savings for these facilities.

The government of Tuscany, Italy for example calculated an annual figure of 8 Million Euro that was saved by turning to on-site treatment of medical hospital waste.

By processing unused and decomposing food matter together with packaging and other refuse on site, supermarkets have achieved improvements in terms of waste disposal costs.

Naval vessels, cruise liners, and off-shore installations such as gas-drilling rigs and oil platforms are another logical application of converter technology.

Due to the extended isolation periods of sea-going vessels and off-shore platforms there is an issue of how to store and dispose of refuse in an efficient and sanitary way.

Increasing numbers of local and national governments are also turning to recycling and conversion technology to relieve the pressure on already-full or overfilled landfills.

The exact temperature required to pasteurize, and in the subsequent phase to sterilize the waste, is maintained for a time that allows for an 18 log 10 reduction in microorganisms.

Plasma-arc gasification plants are able to process all types of waste under extreme heat that emanates from plasma torches that are in contact with the refuse.

Plasma-arc plants produce two types of output; syn-gas, which is collected for use as fuel, and a composite solid that has some properties of plastic and can also be recycled for use in consumer goods.

Adding a waste converter at the front-end of a gasification process will theoretically produce less emissions and a cleaner, more usable end product.

Irradiation plants are large installations that are expensive to build and maintain, and must necessarily be hub locations as part of a larger supply chain.

There is also a health risk and a danger of exposure to radioactive material in installations that use energy sources for generation of gamma rays and other types of radiation.

In general, Micro-wave and Irradiation technology was used to treat hazardous pathogenic waste before the widespread adoption of moist-heat sterilization that both autoclaves and converters use.

These solutions are widely recognized as obsolete due to their impact on the biosphere; while compaction has nearly no effect on the long-term goal of reducing waste dumping, incineration had been notorious for polluting the atmosphere.

One solution that had been instituted to update incineration technology is to add converter stations into the supply chain of clean-burning RDF, of refuse-derived fuel.