Brazil News Dispatch
RECIFE, Pernambuco – The Brazilian Institute of Environmental and Natural Resources (IBAMA) fined the company Imperio do Forro de Bolso, the Pernambuco textile company responsible for importing tons of medical waste from the United States, about U.S. $3.4 million dollars. The company that owns the ship that brought the two containers seized at the Port of Suape on 11 and 13 October, Hamburg Sud, was fined about U.S. $1.12 million dollars.
photo: Beto Oliveira/AE
The fine assessed the textile company was applied in equal parts to three subsidiaries of the company: two warehouses and a store located in Santa Cruz do Capibaribe. In a statement, IBAMA said that the fines are due to environmental damage caused by irregular material, classified as potentially hazardous by Brazilian sanitary law.
IBAMA also argues that the two containers, with about 46 tons of fabric bearing the logo of U.S. hospitals—many stained with what appears to be bodily fluids—should be returned to the United States. Samples of the materials are currently being analyzed at the Pernambuco Institute of Criminality.
The approximately 25 tons of material found in the store and warehouses belonging to the textile company cannot, according to IBAMA, be returned. It will have to be incinerated by a company certified to destroy hazardous waste.
Read also: More Articles from Brazil Dispatch
Brazilian online news source for this article: O Estado do Sao Paulo
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