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Clean Arctic volunteers collect 120 tonnes of scrap metal on Novaya Zemlya

Five volunteers have been working on the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago since late August

ARKHANGELSK, October 18. /TASS/. The Clean Arctic volunteers over six weeks collected and prepared for transportation 120 tonnes of scrap metal near a weather station on Novaya Zemlya’s Yuzhny Island, the project’s press service said.

"They have prepared for transportation and processing 120 tonnes of scrap metal: mostly barrels, which they have cut, pressed and packed," the press service said.

Five volunteers have been working on the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago since late August. They collect the waste, accumulated there from the time of the Arctic’s active development. Near the weather station, which has been working for more than 120 years, they collected mostly barrels from lime, engine oil and gasoline. Additionally, they have found a pressure chamber, tracks from all-terrain vehicles, telescopic antennas and a rudder blade from an old ship. There is practically no plastic waste on the archipelago - the volunteers have picked a few packets on the territory of five hectares.

The area around the weather station is swampy, and the project participants often had to literally tear out the barrels from the marshy ground.

The volunteers had competed to participate in the cleanup mission. Within one week, the organizers received 130 applications. Presently, the volunteers are putting together a roadmap and cleaning methods for those who will come to the archipelago next time. The team will finalize work on Novaya Zemlya before November. Big waste objects, like old tractors, vehicles, metal structures, will remain on the Yuzhny Island till special equipment is delivered there in 2022.

The Clean Arctic project has featured already more than 2,200 people from across Russia. They have collected more than 1,400 tonnes of waste in the Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, Yakutia, Yamalo-Nenets, Komi, Karelia and other regions. The project started in late July, after the Russian Public Chamber discussed an initiative of Captain of the 50 Let Pobedy nuclear-powered Arctic class icebreaker Dmitry Lobusov and Gennady Antokhin, Captain on FESCO’s ships from 1982 to 2012. The project is supported by the environment watchdog Rosprirodnadzor, the youth branch of the All-Russia People’s Front, the Russian Student Corps of Rescuers, the Clean Country association of waste managers, the Norilsk Nickel Company, Russian Railways, the Orion Company, and others.