At the moment, the coast and islands of the Arctic Ocean are polluted with construction and industrial waste of about 4 million tons. There are also up to 12 million unused metal barrels of fuel and lubricants, pronedra.rureported.
Since 2010, the Russian Geographical Society has been actively involved in environmental projects, in particular, the Arctic Cleanup project has been implemented jointly with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of Russia, the Federal State Unitary Scientific and Production Enterprise for Marine Geological Exploration Sevmorgeo and the Polar Research Foundation Polar Fund.
The project focuses on cleaning the shores of the Arctic Ocean from machinery, equipment and other metal debris that were not disposed of in the 1990s. As part of the project, by 2014, specialists had completely cleaned the island of Alexandra Land, collected 47.5 thousand steel barrels weighing 1892 tons, merged 1744 tons of fuel and lubricants, collected 4119 tons of scrap metal and 4797 tons of other solid waste. Work has been carried out on the islands of Rudolf, Hayes, Hoffman and Graham Bell and on the territory of the village of Amderma in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
In 2022, the Russian Geographical Society and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation made the expedition "Arctic. General cleaning. Season 1", the purpose of which was to clean up the pollution of the Murmansk Region, Kildin Island in the Barents Sea and Wrangel Island in Chukotka. "General cleaning" is carried out in order not only to explore and clean the polar territories, but also to create an up-to-date electronic ecological map of the Arctic, which will be constantly updated.
This summer, the second season of the expedition took place, covering the mainland of the Arctic zone. In the village of Khatanga, Krasnoyarsk Krai, scientists, military and volunteers carried out work to assess the volume, composition of pollution, as well as ways of its disposal.
The Arctic Volunteer is a new youth environmental movement launched by the Russian Geographical Society with the support of the Presidential Grants Fund. More than 70 volunteers from all over the country took part in the expedition to Khatanga, who passed selection and special training.
In two weeks, the expedition participants collected more than 200 tons of garbage, thus clearing 3 out of 6 km of coastline.
The main part of the cleanup of the village of Khatangi is planned for 2024. Cleaning of this particular territory is carried out for a reason. Khatanga is considered as one of the reference points of the Russian Arctic in the future, due to its geographical, ethnographic, scientific and tourist potential.
Recycling of the collected man-made garbage seems to be a difficult issue. The task is to launch a recycling economy in the territory being cleaned. The collected and recycled metal can be used to eliminate the consequences of other problems.
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