Forty members of the consolidated environmental unit of the Eastern Military District will collect, compress and prepare for the export of 215 tons of scrap metal from Wrangel Island in the Arctic, the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry reported.
Scrap metal will be collected in 22 cargo containers, which will be sent by ships to the mainland. About 18 units of special equipment will be used to clean up scrap metal from one of the districts of Wrangel Island.
Wrangel Island is located in the Arctic Ocean between the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas, is part of the reserve of the same name and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Since October 2014, units of the Eastern Military District have been located on Wrangel Island. Until the 1990s, there were also military units on the island.
In total, during the work in the Arctic zone from 2015 to the summer of 2022, about 2.200 tons of non-ferrous and ferrous scrap were prepared and exported from Wrangel Island. Over 215 tons of scrap metal were collected during the 2022 season, RIA Novosti reported.