Soiled nappies, condoms and dirty underwear were stuffed into Turkey-bound containers.

Now the St Mary's Island-based company responsible for the 220-tonne shipment will pay £24,000 after accepting the contents were unacceptable for export.

P&D Material Recovery Ltd filled 11 containers with plastic-contaminated waste at Chatham Dockyard. It proposed sending two shipments of plastic scrap to a waste facility in Turkey.

However, an inspection by the Environment Agency (EA) halted the potential illegal waste shipment after finding the load included soiled nappies and sanitary towels, condoms, cotton buds, glass, old underwear and tin cans.

The offence which occurred in March 2019 has just been settled after the company agreed to make a "civil sanction payment" of £13,000 to improve the habitat at the Sandwich Bay Observatory Trust where it will be used to make an artificial wetland for wading birds.

The company will also pay the EA £11,000 to cover its investigation costs.

The firm had accepted that, when inspected, the contents of the containers were unsuitable for export, and it had returned the containers to its own facility and sent the waste for incineration.

To prevent further breaches, the company has agreed to employ additional staff and engage a company that specialises in the manufacturing of waste sorting stations to design a secondary clean-up system and an additional picking station.

Two years earlier, in December 2017, the company had spent £2.5m installing new waste-sorting equipment which it had hoped would more accurately separate the recyclable from the non-recycling components of waste.

Stephen Young, the EA's lead investigator on this case, said: "We want all producers and waste companies to be responsible and make sure they only export material that can be legally and safely sent abroad for recycling.

“Illegal waste exports blight the lives and environment of those overseas.

“All UK waste exports should meet regulations on waste shipments, and the Environment Agency has a system of inspections in place to verify compliance.”