MOSCOW, October 7. The Mikhail Somov vessel delivered volunteers to collect and remove industrial waste on Cape Chelyuskin, which is Eurasia's northernmost point, the Clean Arctic environmental project's press service said.

"We will prepare space for volunteers for next year. We have got a biological treatment plant, a generator, showers, a kitchen - everything necessary for a civilized life in the Arctic. Parallel to this, we will address another task - we will assess the pollution to understand how desperate the situation is, and will start the cleaning," the press service quoted the expedition's participant Alexander Selivanov as saying.

On the cape, the volunteers will test a new technology for waste collection and disposal. Preliminary estimates say about up to 40,000 fuel barrels on the peninsula. Some of them will be taken out by the Mikhail Somov vessel - a helicopter will deliver containers from the ground to the ship. The team of six volunteers features people with certain skills: builders, electricians, engineers. The initial stage's task is to repair the technical and residential premises of the old weather station, where scientists would be able to live and conduct research year round.

"When considering the logistics, we split the group into two parts. One was supposed to get there by ship, and the other was supposed to fly there a little earlier to prepare for their arrival. But for the second week now, our volunteers are unable to fly from Khatanga due to heavy fogs, thus, of course, this is an expedition of a very high level of complexity," the Clean Arctic project's leader Andrey Nagibin said.

The first expedition is supported by the Rosatom State Corporation. It will continue for two months, and further trips to Cape Chelyuskin will be regular. Following results of this season's cleaning, the Clean Arctic project, together with the Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring Department's Northern Branch will develop recommendations for cleaning the Arctic zone.

The Clean Arctic Public Environmental Project has been cleaning northern territories since 2021, focusing on the USSR heritage. Waste disposal is a complex technological task, taking into account the Arctic's natural features. Over three seasons, the project's volunteers have collected 12,000 tons of waste.