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Volunteer student teams to remove litter from Franz Joseph Land archipelago in 2017

The plans are to remove 8,000 tonnes of litter as a minimum

MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/. Volunteer student teams working in the Arkhangelsk region, which is located in the north of the European part of Russia, plan to remove a minimum of 8,000 tonnes of litter from the high-lattitude Franz Joseph Land archipelago, the press service of the regional government said on Tuesday.

"In all, the plans are to remove 8,000 tonnes of litter as a minimum," the report said. "A regular cleanup expedition leaves for the archipelago on July 27. The team named Gandvik will spend two months cleaning Guker and Heiss islands, which are part of the archipelago."

The team is expected to leave Arkhangelsk aboard the Polar King ship. It includes fifteen students from Arkhangelsk, Kaliningrad and Novgorod regions, the constituent republics of Karelia and Komi, and St Petersburg. The Arkhangelsk region government is sponsoring the expedition.

"On the way back, the Polar King will deliver several thousand tonnes of refuse for recycling in Argkhangelsk," the report said.

Earlier reports said the Andrei Osipov ship left the Solombalsky Terminal transport and logistics compound in Arkhangelsk on May 15 with a party of workers and a load of equipment and headed for the Franz Josef Land where the workers would clear up the piles of litter accumulated over the previous decades of human activity on the archipelago, now part of the expansive Russian Arctic national park that embrace a rather remote area of the Arctic Ocean.