In the United States somebody found out he could solve the problem of hospital waste management by exporting the stuff to Brazil. Tons of it have been arriving in containers labeled “defective fabric.” Among bloody bed sheets and dirty diapers – dirty with you-know-what – are used syringes and catheters.
The governor of Pernambuco, where the stuff landed, says the people responsible for the sale of hospital waste is the US customs agency and that he intends to get the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations to do something about it.
The governor, Eduardo Campos, met with businessmen and employees at a local garment district (Polo de Confecções do Agreste) where the textile firm is located that owns the warehouses where the imported material was found.
Campos was upset that the goods had been allowed out of the port of Charleston, South Carolina, for delivery at Suape, in Pernambuco.
On October 14, inspectors discovered two containers with over 46 tons of hospital waste. Immediately, the IRS (Receita Federal), the Civil Police and federal and state health officials closed a store and two warehouses where the “defective fabric” was being stored.
They belong to a company called Intimacy (Na Intimidade ). Authorities suspect that the material they have now impounded is part of a larger shipment of six containers that arrived earlier and was not inspected.
The governor has begun an educational campaign to clean up the damage to the image of the garment district. Campos is duly concerned that Brazil’s second biggest garment manufacturing center, located in his state, where over 20,000 companies are installed, employing 150,000 people, in an area with over 700 stores, six food courts and accommodations for 3,000 buyers to spend the night, must be protected.
Following the interdiction of a store and at least one warehouse belonging to a garment manufacturer in the state of Pernambuco, authorities are now pretty sure that hospital waste from the United States has been coming into Brazil for years where it was used to make clothing.
Two establishments closed down by health officials are located in the towns of Santa Cruz do Capibaribe and Toritama. Both belong to the same company, Na Intimidade, that uses the trade name “Forro de Bolso,” which, as it translates as “pocket liner,” indicates that they made pockets that were sown into clothing.
And it has become clear that the fabric used to make the pockets was the hospital waste from the US. There are also indications that the material was used to make some clothing.
Inspectors have found pieces of fabric with what could be bloodstains. They also found items being sold made of fabric that had the names of US hospitals stenciled on them.
The site of the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade reports that an importer who owns Na Intimidade, called Forrozão (big pocket or lining), made imports of up to US$ 1 million annually between 2001 and 2009. Beginning in 2009, Na Intimidade made imports in the same amount
Meanwhile, the maritime agency that transports the containers imported by the company (some 46 tons of the stuff so far this year), reports that another 14 containers are on their way.
Imports documents describe the contents as “cotton fabric with defects,” or “pieces of cloth.”
Inspectors found bedsheets, dressing gowns, scrub suits, pajamas, pillowcases, bath towels, aprons, baby clothing and diapers – along with gloves, syringes, needles, bandages, gauze and catheters – all dirty and used.
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The dumping of dangerous residuals in developing nations by developed countries is old hat. They usually come in the form of garbage or trash for recycling. In 2009, Brazil received an unwelcome shipment of over a thousand tons of waste from England.
The stuff was returned, fines were levied and the Ministry of Foreign Relations notified international organizations because such shipments violate the Basel Convention on transfer of dangerous residuals from one country to another.
On August 13, 22 tons of waste from Germany arrived in Brazil at Porto do Rio Grande in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, where it was intercepted by Customs authorities (Receita Federal) and environmental protection agents (Ibama).
Upon examination, it was discovered that the shipment contained empty bottles of cleaning fluids, contaminated residuals and even dirty disposable diapers. The cargo was marked industrial residuals for recyling. The cargo came from the port of Hamburg.
Ibama immediately announced that the transporting company and the Brazilian firm that imported the cargo would be fined for illegally transferring dangerous residuals from one country to another.
The fines total US$ 1.1 million. The transportation company has ten days to ship the cargo back to Germany. Under the Basel Convention, the country where an illegal shipment of dangerous residuals came from cannot refuse to receive them back.
Crackdown
The Foreign Trade Chamber (“Camex”) has announced anti-circumvention measures to deal with imports of goods and components of suspicious origin.
Helder Chaves, the Camex secretary general, says the problem is that some goods coming into Brazil as if from one country are actually coming from another. This makes it possible to avoid import tariffs or restrictions.
Chaves also pointed out a problem with imported bicycles from China. As they have a high import surtax, they are being broken down and imported as bicycle parts (with a much lower import tariff).
According to Chaves, antidumping processes are long and drawn out. “Anti-circumvention measures enable us to extend and apply commerce protection norms faster,” he explained.
At a press conference, Chaves also announced new anti-corruption measures as part of an agreement with the European Organization of Economic and Development Cooperation.
“The idea is not so much to punish as to make exporters aware of their obligations,” said the diplomat. The new rules will require exporters who receive any government financing to report possible corruption.
Restrictions on Chicken
Brazil will begin consultations at the World Trade Organization regarding restrictions imposed by the European Union on imports of Brazilian chicken. A preliminary examination of the measure indicates discrimination, says Carlos Marcio Cozendey, at the Economic Department of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations.
According to Cozendey, the new EU norms are detrimental to Brazilian chicken producers and have already caused a shutdown at a large exporter.
“Brasília sees this as a case of noncompliance with WTO rules. In fact, there is discrimination of a national product without a sanitation justification,” said the diplomat.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian Union of Poultry Producers complains that the norms could mean up to US$ 450 million in losses.
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Maringá, a city in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, generates 320 tons of waste every day. And that accounts for residential waste alone. Eight tons consist solely of disposable diapers. All of that daily waste generated by the city's 330,000 inhabitants has been heading to the same place for years: the old city dump, which is now a landfill.
"A controlled landfill," according to the city's attorney, Rogel Martins Barbosa. In the landfill, the story is the same as in so many other cities: landfill waste generates leachate (a liquid produced by garbage), gases etc.
"Landfills are time bombs," says Barbosa. Well, before the time bomb in Maringá goes off, the city has gone after a solution. This year, a new technology will start being tested, which should virtually put an end to domestic waste.
The Biopuster technology, proposed by a consortium comprised of German and Brazilian companies, will transform 70% of those 300 daily tons into humus and recyclable waste (plastic, glass, paper, aluminum).
The remaining 30% will be filled-in. Or even less, according to the Germans who own the technology. And this remaining, unsolved waste will have gone through a "cleaning" process, so that even when filled-in, it will not liberate leachate or gases.
Humus, as an organic material, can be reused. And recyclable materials will then be available for sale by companies that already operate in the sector. Nevertheless, Rogel says it is still early to know how the humus generated there might be reused. That is due to the fact that the project is still a pilot, and tests will be conducted for nine months.
The city attorney explains how the technology works: "There are cells with processing capacity for up to 1,500 tons each. Eight-meter tall spears will deposit air enriched with oxygen into them, turning anaerobic air into aerobic air on the inside. All of this takes place at high temperatures, 176 degrees Fahrenheit."
With the presence of oxygen and heat, bacteria will act upon the waste, eliminating the leachate. "That will make the waste dry," he says.
Then the waste undergoes a screening process that separates humus from recyclables. "This is the big insight of this technology: first to treat, then to separate. When the garbage is separated first, the people who work with recyclables might come into contact with contaminated waste," he explains. In the end of this process, there remains the 30% that will be of no use. Simultaneously, a gas draining process takes place.
The Biopuster Consortium – their motto is: "We return the breath to mother earth – which closed the deal with the Maringá city hall, accepted to ink a risky deal, according to Rogel. They will manage the pilot project for nine months, at no costs to the city hall.
The counterpart requested by the group was for the city to build the adequate flooring for the 14 processing cells that will be built on the landfill site. Besides, they requested that the processed waste belong to them.
"They took a chance because they know that if it works out, Maringá will be a great example to Brazil," says Rogel. After all, this is the first initiative that promises to completely eliminate urban waste in the country.
Total cost during the period will be 3 million Brazilian reais (US$ 1.7 million). The city hall will spend 300,000 reais (US$ 167,000) to build the flooring. "And we will inspect and control the results."
In the future, should the project prove feasible, then the city hall will be able to use the money generated by this new waste to invest in other environmental actions. The initiative may even be submitted to the carbon credit market (Clean Development Mechanisms, established by the Kyoto Protocol), generating new revenues.
Rogel informed that the city of Maringá already has an ecological vocation. "Here we have 645 square feet of green area per inhabitant", he says. In a place where education is one of the main economic talents – there are 33,000 university student openings -, caring for the environment comes almost naturally. Still, the initiative of seeking a solution for the dump was reinforced by a "scolding" from the District Attorney's Office.
"They filed a lawsuit forcing the city hall to close the landfill," says Rogel. "And the Environmental Institute of the state of Paraná (IAP) was pushing us too."
One of the main problems in the area of over 250,000 square meters was the number of garbage collectors who picked through the residue to survive. After the dump was turned into a landfill, those people were forwarded to cooperatives that work with selective garbage collection in the city.
For more
Anba – www.anba.com.br
]]>A study by Faculty of Agricultural Engineering of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in São Paulo, Brazil, reveals that each year 32 million tons of food produced by the Brazilian agricultural sector end up in the garbage.
]]>On Friday, November 5, the Rio Grande [do Sul] Press Association (ARI) launched the second edition of the National Forum on Water, which gets underway tomorrow in Porto Alegre.
The president of the ARI, Ercy Torma, said that the object is to define policies for the sustainable management of water resources, as well as to evaluate the results of the projects presented at the first edition of the forum, which took place in 2003.
“We want to offer practical proposals to solve problems such as the waste and pollution of water resources,” he affirmed.
To this end, the event will gather representatives from Europe, the US, and Mercosur countries, chiefly from environmental organizations of international scope.
Among the government authorities whose presence is confirmed is the Brazilian Minister of Environment, Marina Silva.
The II International Forum on Water is sponsored by the ARI, together with the Ministries of Environment and Cities, the state secretariat of Public Works and Sanitation, the Porto Alegre municipal government, and the United Nations (UN).
The program includes conferences, speeches, panels, and workshops. According to data issued by the Forum on Water, in a span of only 50 years, following World War II, the planet’s reserves of available fresh water decreased 62.7%.
The figures for South America and Africa are even more disturbing: reductions of 73% and 75%, respectively.
Brazil’s water resource potential corresponds to 53% of the reserves in South America and 12% of the global total.
However, in a few years cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro will not have enough water to meet the needs of their populations.
This is the case, because the rate of waste is estimated to be 40%, demonstrating the inept management of these abundant resources.
In the North, where Brazil’s largest reserve of potable water is located, the water supply and basic sanitation systems are considered the worst in the country.
Agência Brasil
Translator: David Silberstein