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Brazil Demands Repatriation of UK Hazardous Waste
Peace Corps Online writes "BBC reports that Brazilian authorities are demanding the return of more than 1,400 tons of hazardous British waste found in about 90 shipping containers on three Brazilian docks. The waste, which includes syringes, condoms, and bags of blood, has been identified as being of UK origin from the names of British supermarkets and newspapers among the rubbish. Reports in the UK media say the waste was sent from Felixstowe in eastern England to the port of Santos, near Sao Paulo, and two other ports in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The British government has launched an investigation into how and why the waste was sent to Brazil and the British Embassy in Brazil has said in a statement that it was investigating and would 'not hesitate to act' if it was found that a UK company had violated the Basel Convention on the movement of hazardous waste. Meanwhile Brazil is demanding the immediate return of the rubbish to the UK. 'We will ask for the repatriation of this garbage,' says Roberto Messias, head of the Brazilian environment agency. 'Clearly, Brazil is not a big rubbish dump of the world.'" Two UK companies named by Brazil as suspected exporters of the waste are owned by a Brazilian, based in the UK, who says that anything that was in the containers other than the expected recyclable plastic is a problem to take up with his suppliers.
Douglas Adams himself would have a difficult time thinking up something so blunderingly, amazingly stupid and steeped in political dumb-fuckery. I find myself compelled, forced even, to complete a piece of fan fiction regarding a massive garbage freighter being sent repeatedly back and forth between two planets like a giant, stinky and half-rotten tennis ball because two governments couldn't get it straight which one of them tossed out the first banana peel. I think it has merit.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
If "stuff that matters" is the only criteria for getting on Slashdot, then every news story should be posted. News is, after all NEWS. I thought this was a tech blog and "stuff that mattered" would be inside the tech field.