Oceanwide Expeditions completed its first Cleaning the shores of Svalbard trip. The trip was an eight day voyage to the remote northern part of Svalbard dedicated to picking up garbage from the region’s beaches. An estimated 13 m3 of garbage was removed from three beaches in the area of Raudfjorden, the remote Rijpfjorden, and Mushamna in Woodfjorden.
Each beach cleaned yielded 4-5 m3 of garbage consisting mainly of plastic of various origins, fishing rope, nets, and floats. The garbage was sorted onboard and with the assistance of Sysselmannen and the Svalbard Environmental Fund it has now been disposed of in a proper manner.
Background
In recent years more and more focus has been on the immense quantity of garbage (in particular plastics) that is dumped into the oceans of the world. Although the high Arctic archipelago of Svalbard is very remote, the Gulf Current terminates in this area bringing up untold tons of garbage every year. Oceanwide Expeditions is committed to sustainable tourism and is proud to have supported the effort to make a difference.