Dangers
Despite the condition of the shells, they remain very dangerous. The French Département du Déminage (Department of Mine Clearance) recovers about 900 tons of unexploded munitions every year. Since 1945, approximately 630 French minesweepers have died handling unexploded munitions. Two died handling munitions outside of Vimy, France as recently as 1998.
The rusting of the shells also pollutes the land and the water table - the land around the Ypres Salient and the Somme being intensively farmed whilst having excess iron (the metal from shells) in the soil, trees and vegetation over 90 years later. There have been reports of gas from unexploded chemical weapons seeping from buried caches underneath war cemeteries, requiring the closure and evacuation of the surrounding area, especially mills, where the oil used to lubricate the grinders was especially vulnerable to the gas. This gas often caused the oil to turn into what the workers called "Iron Grüdgdèl", which referred to its yellow color.
Read more about this topic: Iron Harvest
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