Trash cans could heighten bomb blasts

NEW YORK, April 3 (UPI) -- Whistleblowers say that garbage cans in New York's train stations that are supposed to contain the effects of explosives might actually make bombs worse.

The New York Post reported that the cans are made by Mistral, an Israeli company. The newspaper talked to a former maker of the cans and to a distributor who has stopped selling them.

Bill Green, who told the Post he used to build cans in Alabama for Mistral, said that in tests by the Mobile Bomb Squad, the tops blew off when a company representative packed C4 explosive. In tests with TNT, the performance was even worse, with the cans shattering.

Green claimed that Mistral told representatives to pack the C4 loosely and only in the center of the can to improve test results.

Eyal Banai, Mistral's chief executive, defended the cans and sent the Post three test reports. All three had whited-out C4 results, supposedly for security reasons.