Recovery of dangerous goods in Beirut completed

Today the time has finally come: the work in the Port of Beirut is finished.

Since the beginning of November, HÖPPNER has been taking care of the hazardous substances that have been stored in the port for decades on behalf of the Bremen-based company CombiLift. As part of the hazardous waste recovery operation, the colleagues on site secured and identified the chemicals present, transferred them into suitable transport containers and prepared them for proper disposal and recycling in Germany.

Among other things, these quantities of chemicals were salvaged from 58 dilapidated shipping containers, some of which had been eaten away by the acids stored inside:

• 700 buckets of sodium hydroxide
• 380 IBC containers with sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, acetone, methanol and thinner
• 350 drums with methyl bromide

"We have now successfully completed an exciting project with some initial uncertainties," says Michael Wentler, visibly relieved. "What we found here at the beginning of November was truly unbelievable: I was standing knee-deep in hydrochloric acid. We had to have all the safety equipment flown in from Germany, otherwise we would have been working in rain ponchos instead of protective suits. You could see the clouds of acid above the containers in the harbor lights. So it's all the more pleasing that everything is now safely packed and labeled and that our area in the port no longer poses a risk to the population or the environment."

As soon as the notification has been completed, the hazardous goods packed in new shipping containers will be shipped to northern Germany, where they are expected to be recycled or disposed of by Nehlsen AG in April.