POND ISLAND--The mountain of scrap metal on Pond Island has grown significantly in the past weeks. It would have been higher had it not been for the shipping of some 2,600 metric tonnes of scrap metal from St. Maarten to the Netherlands.
About 70 per cent of the shipment was 1,264 crushed vehicles damaged by Hurricane Irma on September 6, 2017. The rest comprised industrial scrap metal and zinc. The scrap metal was compacted into easily managed cubes and loaded onto a Vertom ocean liner under the supervision of Steel Crushers B.V., headed by Eric Loor.
Environment and Infrastructure Minister Miklos Giterson said the scrap metal will be shredded in the Netherlands into reusable items. The removal of the shipped-out metal created more room on the current Irma dump site. Giterson said government is working a plan to ship more metal out in the near future.
