Hamilton neighbourhood covered after plant malfunction sends 'beans raining down'
CBC
Adrienne Van Halem woke up one recent morning to find it had rained soybeans overnight.
The 35-year-old left her home along Burlington Street East in Hamilton, Ont., on Dec. 29 to walk her dog and found something off-white sprinkled over cars, houses, porches — everything in her North End neighbourhood.
It wasn't snowfall, or the salt Van Halem mistook it for at first. It was bean husks.
"It struck me as unusual, of course," she said with a laugh.
"It's just gross and messy and surprising to have beans raining down."
Van Halem shared the odd occurrence on Reddit, asking whether there was anyone she should contact.
"My whole block is covered in the soybean skins," she wrote, sharing a picture of the top of a car dotted with shells.
The homeowner also called nearby Bunge, the U.S.-based food company that operates an oilseed processing plant in Hamilton, to ask if they had any explanation for what happened.
She said she received a voicemail confirming the facility was involved and, the next day, a letter acknowledging what happened along with a gift card for a car wash.
Sometime overnight between Dec. 28 and 29 pieces of soyabeans were "discharged inadvertently," wrote Bunge spokesperson Deb Seidel in an email to CBC, calling it a rare occurrence.
"While the hulls discharge posed no health or safety risk to either neighbours or employees, we understand that the residue was an annoyance for our neighbours," she said.
Seidel confirmed gift certificates were handed out to those who were affected and said the company contacted the Ministry of Environment and is "working on identifying and implementing corrective action from the incident."
The ministry confirmed in an email to CBC that it followed up with Bunge and determined the spray of shells that landed on the area was the result of a plugged dust collector caused by excess moisture in the process.
"The facility was unaware until the City of Hamilton relayed a public complaint," the email read.
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