Waste Crime - Waste Risks: Gaps in Meeting the Global Waste Challenge

Mixed household waste from UK to Brazil

Between September 2008 and May 2009, more than 1 500 tonnes of household waste described as plastics for recy- cling were exported in 89 containers from England to Brazil. The contents consisted of co-mingled plastics, tins, paper, cardboard, batteries, syringes, empty medical pack- aging, condoms, and soiled nappies. Reports prepared by the Brazilian authorities in July 2009 concluded that the containers violated Brazilian law and the Basel Convention. As a result, the Brazilian government lodged a formal complaint with the Basel Secretariat. Once the Environment Agency was informed, cooperation between the authorities involved was established, ensuring the repatriation of all 89 containers to England between August and October 2009. Brazilian author- ities brought prosecutions against the shipping lines and companies involved in the import of the waste to Brazil. The Environment Agency, the competent authority for regu- lating imports and exports of waste to and from England, investigated this case. It became the Agency’s largest inves- tigation into illegal exports, involving more than 70 officers and a two-year inquiry, and culminating in prosecution of three companies and five individuals in December 2011. The inspection and analysis of the containers alone took more than three months to complete. The Agency disposed of the material to a landfill due to health and environmental concerns about the contents of the waste.

England. The companies went into liquidation before they could be prosecuted. They had sourced roughly half of the waste from household collections in their area and the rest from a company dealing with similar waste in Greater London. That company was looking for a buyer for a vast stockpile of waste, and the Brazilian nationals agreed to buy it at a reduced price. All three Brazilian nationals, the London company, its managing director, and its sales manager were prosecuted for exporting prohibited waste. One of the Brazilian nationals remains at large, but the rest of the defendants pleaded guilty and were sentenced at the Central Criminal Court in London in 2013. The two Brazilian nationals and the sales manager were given conditional discharges of between 18 months and 2 years. That means that, should they commit similar offences within those periods, they will be brought back to court and dealt with not only for those offences but also this offence. The main reason for the conditional discharges was that they had no means to pay a significant fine. Both Brazilian nationals also had civil judgements against them in excess of USD 1 million (from the shipping lines involved in shipment of the containers to Brazil. The managing director and his company were ordered to pay a total of USD 157 000 in fines and costs. This could have been significantly more, but they had already settled a civil claim for damages with the shipping lines in excess of USD 449 000. shipping line can try to sell the waste to another buyer within the same region, as the costs of returning a container to the load point can be high. In this way, the competent authority in the country of dispatch may never learn of an attempted illegal shipment. Although reports of abandoned containers are few, the number of containers involved can appear high, and it is likely that this is occurring on a larger scale than has been reported.

The two companies responsible for exporting the containers were run by three Brazilian nationals based in the west of

In such situations, the owner of the waste may abandon the container and may even avoid paying the outstanding ship- ping charges. The risk of this happening with low-value waste exports such as low-grade paper is obviously greater than with high-value scrap metal. Costs start to rack up the longer a container is abandoned; demurrage costs and lost revenue for containers that remain out of circulation accumulate. When a container has not cleared customs at the destination port, the

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