About 10,000 liters of illegal drug chemicals were dumped in one Amsterdam neighborhood

Amsterdam workers in a residential area within the Sloterdijk district this week found between 450 and 500 jerry cans filled with chemical waste created during the production of illegal drugs. The municipality spent much of Thursday and Friday collecting the large volume of chemical waste, up to 10,000 liters, found dumped into underground garbage bins.

A police investigation is ongoing, according to local broadcaster AT5. The clean-up was expected to be completed by the end of Friday.

Enforcement officers noticed the stench of acetone near the garbage bins at Wilhelmina Druckerstraat on Thursday. The chemical can be used to as part of a process to wash cocaine, and it can also be used in the production of ecstasy, heroin, crystal meth and other amphetamines.

A search turned up the suspicious jerry cans, the second such discovery in less than two weeks in the neighborhood. A chemical disposal company was brought in to investigate the immediate surrounding area. They found jerry cans at nine underground rubbish containers, including on Wilhelmina Druckerstraat, Helena Mercierstraat, Emilie Knappertstraat, and the Abraham Staalmanplein.

Throughout Thursday, the company carefully picked through the contents of eight containers, recovering a total of 400 jerry cans. Another 75 to 100 jerry cans were expected to be found over the course of Friday on Abraham Staalmanplein.

Most of the jerry cans were expected to contain roughly 20 liters of chemical waste. That puts the total at anywhere from roughly 9,500 to 10,000 liters in total.

Local residents were disturbed by the discovery. “This is in the middle of a residential area with a lot of children playing outside,” one person told AT5. Acetone itself is highly flammable, and could be particularly dangerous to anyone not authorized to handle the chemical.