TASS, August 22. The Eastern Military District’s ecology unit began cleaning the Wrangel Island from scrap metal, the military district’s press service reported on Monday.

"The united ecology unit of more than 45 servicemen on the Wrangel Island has finished the organization of a camp for accommodation and further work. The military personnel are tasked to collect, press and prepare and transport on third-parties’ vessels about 215 tonnes of scrap metal," the press service said.

The works on the island feature modern cranes, Ural trucks equipped for transportation of scrap metal, Kamaz trucks and caterpillar carriers.

The ecology unit works in Somnitelnaya Bay, near the former airfield, Zvezdnyi.

There is no permanent population on the Wrangel Island. The temporary population is meteorologists, the nature reserve’s staff and military personnel. The ecology unit cleans the Wrangel Island, a nature reserve, from waste and metal barrels that have accumulated there since the time the Defense Ministry had its facilities there, since the work of polar stations and research bases.