By IANS/EFE,
Rio de Janeiro : A shipment of 22 tonnes of household trash that arrived at a port in Brazil has been returned to Germany, officials said.
The German-flagged ship Rio Negro sailed in the weekend from Rio Grande port for Hamburg, where it is expected to arrive in September, the Brazilian Environment and Natural Resources Institute said.
The trash originated in the Czech Republic, according to documents, but Brazilian officials ordered the shipment to be sent to Germany because it was the last country the waste passed through before arriving in Brazil.
The trash was imported by plastics firm Recoplast, which wanted to recycle them.
Nearly 1,400 tonnes of trash had arrived in 2009 in Santos, Rio Grande and Caxias do Sul from Britain and were intercepted by authorities.