Alex Rodrigues       Reporter Agência Brasil

Brasília – Someone in the United States resolved 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 bedsheets and dirty diapers – dirty with you-know-what - are used syringes and catherers.

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 (“limpar a imagem”). 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.

Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English

Link - Governador responsabiliza aduana norte-americana por lixo hospitalar encontrado no polo têxtil pernambucano