Brazil waste row firm is defended (From This Is Wiltshire)

Brazil waste row firm is defended

8:40am Wednesday 22nd July 2009

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BUSINESSES in South Marston have been left surprised to hear that a neighbouring recycling business had been named as part of an investigation into allegedly hazardous waste that stretched from Britain to Brazil.

Last week, Brazil’s Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources named two Swindon companies which it would be investigating after 1,400 tonnes of toxic waste turned up in containers at Santos, near São Paulo, and two other ports in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The Brazilian authorities claimed waste in the containers included syringes, bags of blood, condoms and nappies.

Seats from chemical toilets and used bandages were also reported to be mixed with bales of recyclable plastic, while other containers held computers, televisions and car batteries.

Public resentment was fuelled in Brazil when one container was found to include a collection of dirty toys with a note in Portuguese saying that they should be washed before being given to “poor Brazilian children”.

Worldwide Biorecyclables, based on Broadmoor Road in the South Marston Business Park, and one of the two companies named by Ibama, was run by Andre de Oliveira and Julio da Costa.

The site was yesterday deserted with a notice posted on the building from March 23 of this year to tell people the lease had been forfeited.

Antony Altria and son Martin are directors of nearby Retro Vehicle Specialists Ltd who claimed that the Worldwide Biorecyclables premises had been a mess.

“You should have seen the state of it – it was a right nightmare,” said Martin.

“The site was just a horrific mess – we didn’t really have anything to do with them,” added Antony.

“All we ever saw was piles of plastic.“It’s quite incredible [what has happened].”

They said that around Christmas time the premises had been shut when six or seven workers had been left outside with no idea what was going on. The business restarted for a couple of weeks after this then they found it had gone.

An employee at another nearby business who did not want to be named said they had never had problems with Worldwide Biorecyclables.

“We never had issues with them,” she said.

“If some of that waste was toxic there would have been a smell problem here and there wasn’t one.”

Mr da Costa is understood to have said that his company simply processed plastic collected by British companies for export to Brazil. “I have a contract with the UK supplier of refuse that it is just plastic,” he told the BBC’s Brazilian service.

And a friend of the owners who worked for the company, Mauro Fancisco, told the Adver earlier this week that they did not dump waste. “It is not true,” he said. “I will give the documents to the British authorities to prove that nothing they’re saying is true. This is scrap plastic, it’s not waste rubbish.”

The Environment Agency has begun an investigation into the case to determine if a criminal offence has been committed.

Liz Parkes, the Environment Agency’s head of waste, said: “People can be fined unlimited amounts and prison sentences are imposed,” said Miss Parks.

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