A company is facing an unlimited fine after human waste and body fluids which should have been incinerated were discovered on a North-East roadside.

Truckloads of waste, including human tissue some of which was five months' old, were discovered at truck stops on Tyneside.

Authorities were alerted after blood began seeping onto the roadside at one truck stop in Newcastle.

Yesterday, the Environment Agency revealed that Eurocare Environmental Services - based in Newcastle - had pleaded guilty to 10 charges of contravening the Environment Protection Act 1990 at a hearing before magistrates in Wrexham.

The charges relate to the keeping and disposing of controlled, clinical waste at a number of locations in Birmingham and Wrexham, as well as incidents on Tyneside.

Several counts relate to the storage of clinical waste while others concern incidents when ''poisonous, noxious and polluting matter'' flowed into a tributary of the River Dee in north Wales.

In others, the company admitted the unauthorised dumping of clinical waste on land near Chester as well as fraudulently obtaining licences to dispose of waste.

Eurocare Environmental Services is one of the country's leading waste management firms, disposing of 45,000 tonnes of hospital waste each year.

It is also the largest ''non-burn'' disposal operator in Europe and operates in the north-east of England, central and north-east Scotland and the Irish Republic.

The case at Chester Crown Court is against the firm rather than its directors.