Hazardous Waste traces back to Czech Republic
The Czech Environment Ministry confirmed to CTK yesterday that the 22 tonnes of illegal contaminated waste that Brazil shipped back to Germany from where it was dispatched comes from the Czech Republic.
The waste was sent from Neoma, a Czech company producing and processing plastic materials. The Czech Environmental Inspection (CIZP) will check the company this week.
“Sanctions will ensue from the check,” the ministry said.
On August 3, the Brazilian environmental authorities uncovered the container for the Recoplast Brazilian company that was officially full of clean plastic but it actually contained toxic waste, including dirty detergent packagings, soiled diapers and “contaminated residues.”
The container, dispatched by the Hong Kong-based company Dashan, was shipped by the Hanjin Korean company from Hamburg, Germany, to the state of of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. According to the accompanying documents, the contents came from the Czech Republic.
Under international treaties a hazardous cargo can be returned to the place from which it was dispatched, the French news agency AFP said.
The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) spokesman Fernando Marques confirmed to AFP that the container had been sent back to Germany on the basis of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, adopted in the 1980s.
The Hanjin shipping company was fined an equivalent of 16.5 million crowns and it had to ship the cargo back to Germany within ten days after receiving the official decision, that is by August 23. Otherwise it would face another fine. Recoplast must pay a fine of an equivalent of 4.4 million crowns.
The Basel convention bans transport of hazardous waste between countries without an official consent of the recipient country.
The Czech Republic joined the Basel convention in 1992, Brazil and Germany a year later.
($1=19.525 crowns)
Source: praguemonitor