MOSCOW, July 16. /TASS/. Volunteers of the Clean Arctic public environmental project will clean up Cape Chelyuskin from scrap metal. The cape is Eurasia's northernmost and most inaccessible point, the project's press service said.

"If a sailor looks through binoculars from the Northern Sea Route, Cape Chelyuskin is orange - from rusty barrels and scrap metal, accumulated there. At the end of this season, we will make a detailed orthoimage plan to realize the true amount of waste accumulated there. This season, in fact, we will try out a new complex technology, because we will deliver collected waste by helicopter to the Mikhail Somov [research vessel], which will be serving a return voyage. We plan to roll barrels manually, and in case of long distances, we will use a quad bike not to damage the soil, which will never recover after the pressure," the press service quoted the organization's leader Andrey Nagibin as saying.

Some 20 - 40 thousand metal barrels are estimated on the cape. The ecology volunteers have been preparing for almost a year for this unique and most difficult mission in the project's history. A group of ten people will leave for Cape Chelyuskin in early August. They have passed a serious selection process - they are physically hardy men with technical skills of an electrician, builder, welder. Their task is to start the cleaning, as well as to reconstruct an old hostel of the national hydrometeorology service, Roshydromet. This is the only building where technical staff and project participants could be accommodated any time of the year. The first expedition will continue for almost two months, where the volunteers will have to live in difficult conditions.

The first stage to prepare the mission has been completed. Necessary equipment and tools have been purchased and packed in boxes: diesel power plants, sewage treatment plants, a gas welding machine, building materials, a quad bike with a cart to carry barrels. At the next stage, all this will be sent to Arkhangelsk, to be uploaded onboard the Mikhail Somov scientific expedition vessel. The vessel will deliver the cargo directly to Cape Chelyuskin. A helicopter will take the cargo ashore.

"It is like a special mission. Our volunteers will leave a little earlier to prepare the site, to receive the cargo and to start installing the equipment. The work to collect all the necessary materials is effort-taking, uneasy. Imagine, if a box of screws is not delivered, then the only option to deliver it is by helicopter. Thus, the preparations are very thorough," the organization's leader said.

The Clean Arctic Public Environmental Project has been cleaning up northern territories since 2021. Over three seasons, the project's volunteers have collected 12,000 tons of waste.