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Eco-friendly navigation measures must be implemented in Arctic, expert says

The most polluted seas are the Barents Sea and the Pacific sector’s seas, leader of the Clean Arctic federal project Ruslan Gubaidullin said

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The issue of responsible navigation regarding waste dump in the sea needs to be regulated in the Arctic, leader of the Clean Arctic federal project Ruslan Gubaidullin said.

"Our position is that navigation must be responsible," he said during a roundtable, devoted to safety in the Arctic Region. "A huge amount of plastic packages, the insufficient plastics processing even in the Western countries, and our neighbors’ irresponsible attitude to dumping waste in the sea bring this aspect to a macro level."

According to Clean Arctic and to the Project Office for Arctic Development, the Arctic zone’s cleanest seas are the East-Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea. The most polluted seas are the Barents Sea and the Pacific sector’s seas, he added.

"In the Barents Sea, where the navigation is international, 53% of the waste are of international origin. <…> The population in our Siberia and the Arctic zone is about 35 million, while the population of North-Western Europe is about 300 million people - the ratio is one to ten. Hence, this is the plastics <…> we receive in the Arctic zone," he said.

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.