An expedition to collect scrap metal has been launched on the Heiss Island in the Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land. Four volunteers, including Vladimir Perevalov, an expert of the Project Office for the Development of the Arctic (PODA), are to reach their destination - the Mikhail Somov research vessel - within two weeks. Interfax quotes a representative of the Clean North - Clean Country movement Artyom Smolokurov saying that the volunteers will spend about 25 days on the Heiss Island and collect about 100 tonnes of scrap metal on the area of 60,000 sq. metres. The members of the expedition will remove the metal scrap left over from the Soviet times at the Polar Geophysical Observatory named after Ernst Krenkel near the freshwater Cosmic Lake where meteorological rockets were launched in 1957. According to Smolokurov, the metal scrap will be taken out from the island for further recycling.
The expedition programme also includes the visits to a number of scientific environmental monitoring stations, as well as water sampling to study the presence of microplastics.
The organizer of the expedition is the Arkhangelsk public environmental movement Clean North - Clean Country; organizational assistance is provided by the Clean Arctic federal programme, and informational support is provided by the Project Office for the Development of the Arctic. A report on the results of the expedition will be published on the GoArctic.ru resource.
It is worth mentioning that a month ago, from June 4 to 6, 2022, the Project Office for the Development of the Arctic and the Clean Arctic federal project held a Single Arctic subbotnik (volunteer clean-up day) in a dozen cities and towns in the Russian Arctic. Volunteers collected and removed the garbage and cleaned popular recreation areas. Nikolay Doronin, Chairman of the PODA’s Board, a member of the Clean Arctic expert council, emphasized the importance of volunteering to clean up littered areas. According to the expert, this activity is an essential element of environmental education, thanks to which the environment becomes cleaner. The volunteers will collect scrap metal on the Heiss Island in the Arctic.
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