POINTE BLANCHE--Local authorities plan to send a container full of animal feed, drinks and paint buckets back to Puerto Rico, believing the items to be contaminated.
Firemen clothed in hazardous material suits on Friday removed dozens of cans of old paint and paint thinner from 34 barrels that were in a container sent from Puerto Rico recently.
The container was destined for French St. Martin, but the consignee could not pay, The Daily Herald understands, and it was turned over to another shipping company.
“We’ve been back and forth with Puerto Rico [for a while],” said a representative of the Dutch St. Maarten cargo service that contacted local authorities. The container had started to smell and they worried about its contents.
Customs and government’s Hygiene and Inspection Departments watched as fire fighters, in two teams of two, uncovered the barrels, revealing smaller buckets of paint stacked three or more to each barrel.
The buckets were deemed to be for disposal purposes: metal, rust-covered lids fused to the old containers, which seemed soaked in dried paint. Fire-hazard warnings on the buckets were faded.
Firemen pried the barrels open one at a time, to verify the contents. Old paint and paint thinner were in the buckets.
According to persons in the shipping industry who saw it, the consignment form was incorrect. It did not indicate that there were chemicals in the container and did not suggest that there was possibly contaminated food.
Workers revealed a dangerous mingling of waste chemicals with human food, chicken feed, malted drinks and matches.
Senior Fire Officer Frans Nieuwenhoven condemned what authorities think was an attempt to slip used chemicals in St. Maarten/St. Martin for illegal disposal.
“We are not a dumping place for other countries,” Nieuwenhoven said.
Most paints are polymeric combinations of natural oils or synthetic polymers. The binding agent in paint can be dangerous to the environment and additives for texture or composition can be hazardous to human health.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not list the reagents in paint as substantial environmental hazards. However, disposing of these substances should be done in a safe manner.
