TASS, August 2. Volunteers, local business employees and residents under the Clean Arctic federal project collected and removed about 80 tonnes of waste from Russia’s northernmost city - Pevek on the Chukchi Peninsula, the project’s press service said.
"In Pevek the Clean Arctic federal project has organized a big cleanup mission," the press service said. "For two days, volunteers, local residents and employees of local businesses, as well as officials and representatives of the Chukchi’s Sopka society were cleaning the coastline and the territory around the Orbita gym."
"They have collected and transported about 80 tonnes of household and industrial waste," the press service added.
According to the region’s Governor Roman Kopin, the volunteers were using heavy-duty vehicles to remove big objects, which earlier volunteers were unable to not handle. "Over two days, from the bay they have transported four trucks of waste, and from Orbita they have removed more than 41 tonnes of scrap metal and eight trucks of waste," the press service quoted the governor as saying.
In Pevek the teams collected 77 tonnes of waste - metal and household waste. The mission featured more than 80 people, including employees of RusHydro, Rosatom, Elkon MMC, ArcticVtorMet, and others.
"The mission in Pevek is a wonderful example of cooperation between volunteers, the authorities, businesses and local residents," the press service quoted Clean Arctic’s COB Ruslan Gubaidullin as saying. "We were happy to see representatives of the small-numbered indigenous peoples have joined the events."
"Such cleanup missions in the region become regular, they introduce a correct, good habit to keep the region tidy, to care for it and not to allow new contamination areas," he added.
Since beginning of the current summer, residents of Chukotka’s Anadyr, Pevek, Egvenkinot, Provideniya, and Ryrkaipiy have joined Clean Arctic’s missions. Almost 300 people have participated in the federal project’s events. Clean Arctic is a large-scale project to clean the Arctic territory from the waste, accumulated since the Soviet times. 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 are the project’s authors. Clean Arctic has developed into a platform, which unites public and volunteer organizations, scientists, officials and businesses. The project’s partners are Norilsk Nickel, Rosatom, PhosAgro, and RZD.