Brazil reports British shipments to toxic waste body

Brazil has reported Britain to the top international body overseeing the trade in hazardous waste over allegations it exported hundreds of tonnes of household rubbish, a Brazilian diplomat said on Friday.
The move followed the discovery in recent weeks of about 1,400 tonnes of British household waste in Brazil that appeared to have been illicitly exported under the guise of recyclable plastic.
The report was lodged with the secretariat of the Basel Convention, an agreement signed by 172 countries which regulates the cross-border movements and disposal of hazardous waste.
It was set up in the 1990s as a response to a growing wave of toxic waste dumping in eastern Europe and developing countries, mainly by private firms from industralised nations.
"Since both countries are part of the Basel Convention, we gave the secretariat the information that we found ... and now we hope that Britain will come up with a solution to the problem," the diplomat, who declined to be named, told AFP.
"The secretariat can act as a mediator or send experts to check on the denuncation, and what normally happens in these situations is that Britain removes this hazardous waste from Brazil," he added.
The diplomat said there had been full cooperation from British authorities, as both countries investigated who was responsible for both exporting and importing the waste.
The waste included used disposable nappies, syringes, condoms, batteries, food remains, used packages of cleaning products and cloth, according to Brazilian news reports and images taken during an inspection by Brazil's state environmental agency IBAMA.
However the containers, which had been unloaded in three southern ports in Brazil, had been marked as containing only plastic for recycling.
Britain's Environment Agency said on Sunday plans were being laid to bring back the 89 containers of rubbish that had allegedly been illegally exported.