Rubbish at the Glastonbury Festival 2009 in south west England.
Photo: Luke MacGregor

SAO PAULO - Brazil will send 89 shipping containers of garbage, rotting and maggot-infested, back to Britain and has issued $419,000 in fines to the three Brazilian companies that imported it, the government said on Monday.

Around 1,600 tons of waste, including toilet seats, dirty diapers, used syringes and old TVs and computers, are lying in the containers at two southern ports after being sent from Britain falsely declared as a cargo of plastics.

Brazil has fined the three companies that imported the waste, Stefenon Estrategia e Marketing, Bes Assessoria e Comercio Exterior and Alphatec, environment agency IBAMA said, and said the firms would have to pay to send it back.

"If they don't send the rubbish back they will be fined (a daily rate) until this is resolved," said Ingrid Oberg, head of IBAMA in Santos, where the country's largest port is located. The daily rate would be on top of the fixed penalties the government has already slapped on the firms.

Some of the trash-filled containers have been docked at the ports since November.

There was confusion over who would foot the bill to return the waste.

Britain's Environment Agency said on Monday the company that exported the waste to Brazil also would be made to repatriate it to Britain at its own expense.

Oberg said the Brazilian companies, based in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, had shown willingness to cooperate.

The companies, who say they were expecting shipments of plastic, can contest the fines if they can prove they did not knowingly import waste that was potentially harmful to the environment and to public health.

British authorities are also investigating how the waste came to be exported.

($US=1.908)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved