He thought someone ought to come up with a way to sanitize those bags.
So he did.
Yerby, 56, is not an inventor by trade.
He’s a pilot who for a while was president of the flying association at the regional airport in
He’s also a successful entrepreneur who has headed
the antique restoration business Heritage Strip and Finish for the past
decade and a half.
But an inventor he is not — or at least wasn’t.
After doing research online, Yerby found that there
were few methods available for sanitizing reusable shopping bags. But
he learned that other industries such as air-conditioning and heating
system manufacturers used ultraviolet light for sanitation.
So Yerby invented HealthGuard UVC, a UV light system that can sanitize up to four shopping bags in about 30 seconds.
He had the bags tested and said the results showed
that the system kills 300 types of bacteria, including salmonella,
staph and E. coli.
“Nothing is 100 percent sterile,” Yerby said. “But
it can be between 93 and 98 percent bacteria-free. … Right now you
can’t put a gym bag or most reusable bags in a washing machine and get
them effectively clean because they’re going to collapse. You can’t put
the plastic ones in the dryer. … In order to kill the amount of
bacteria and different types this machine does, you have to get up to
pressure-cooker type temperature.”
HealthGuard is patent-pending and can be customized
to fit retail settings. Yerby hopes to start leasing the machines this
year for
He also has plans to modify the machine for hospital
keyboards, gym bags, athletic equipment and other uses that could
broaden its appeal.
So far, he has invested about
“You go through life, and you sit there and wonder,”
he said. “You think up something, and you think, ‘That’s a good idea,’
but you never follow up on it. And then five or 10 years later, you see
someone else come out with it.”
The timing for HealthGuard may be perfect, said
“The public is much more aware of transmissible
diseases and how they are communicated from person to person,” he said.
“The awareness that has resulted from the H1N1 pandemic has created
opportunities for people to think outside the box, and this is clearly
an application that has a lot of potential.”
The machine also cashes in on the growing popularity
of reusable bags. The bags are now sold by nearly every major retailer,
and many stores, including CVS, Target and
“This has gone from something that was done primarily by tree huggers to something that has now become kind of normal,” said
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