MANZHEROK /Altai Region/, June 22. /TASS/. A cleanup mission to remove earlier accumulated waste in Russia's one of the northernmost towns, Khatanga (the Krasnoyarsk Region), will begin in 2023. The mission's participants will come to the town on August 1, the Russian Geographical Society's Deputy Executive Director Sergey Korlykhanov said.

Big amounts of technology waste have remained in the Krasnoyarsk Region's north since the Soviet times. Those are fuel barrels, broken vehicles and equipment.

"We have picked a well-known town - Khatanga in the Krasnoyarsk Region's north. It is in the Arctic. <…> Now, it is a direct, the quickest and most convenient route to the North Pole. <…> Khatanga is a unique town, which in two years will celebrate the 400th anniversary. So, together with volunteers, with scientists, with the local community we will clean up <…> Khatanga from the accumulated damage," he said.

The project's participants are expected to get to Khatanga on August 1 already, he told TASS. The mission will feature up to 100 participants. That would be a reconnaissance trip.

"For two weeks (from August 1 - TASS), we are working there, specifying the cleanup areas, assessing the amounts, what equipment we need, and how to transport the waste," he added.

For year 2023, the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) plans 19 federal-level complex scientific, archaeological expeditions. In 2022, RGS studied and cleaned the Kildin Island in the Barents Sea. That mission's participants collected more than 300 tons of waste, transported to the mainland more than 600 tons, monitored the ecology conditions, the relict Mogilnoye Lake, described more than 40 bird species, including those on the Red Data Book list.