Much can be said about our project fieldwork but not that we ever travelled light. Why? Because, apart from some extra clothes, which were to protect us against the fickle Arctic weather, we also had to carry: flare guns and rifles in case of a not-that-pleasant encounter with a polar…
Seas and oceans have served humanity as rubbish dumps for hundreds of years, but initially it wasn’t much of a problem. As recently as at the end of the 18th century, there were merely 1.5 billion of us and the majority of rubbish we generated was made of natural materials,…
It’s been two months since – after four weeks of grappling with beach litter, bad weather and our own weaknesses – we reached the end of this year’s round of fieldwork, conducted as part of Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup project. Much against our better judgement, we did not immediately go…
This spring, Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup project received the patronage of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Poland. Despite the fact that the Embassy does not normally offer its patronage to initiatives carried out outside Polish borders, an exception was made in our case. The reason behind this exceptional treatment was…
The issue of marine litter may be approached in a number of ways. The widest recognition is usually given to initiatives focusing on prevention, such as raising the awareness of dangers involved in excessive use of plastic or searching for environmentally-friendly alternatives. There is also much talk about improving existing…
Today we’re going to tell you a little more about the Awfully Rotten Cabin, or Kapp Horn Hytte (which is how it’s referred to in official records). What stands behind these names is the trapper’s cabin in Palffyodden, which will soon, for three weeks, turn into our headquarters and after…
A project is much like a baby. Before we got down to work, the idea seemed brilliant, the required amount of effort and commitment – reasonable, and the expected feeling of satisfaction from a job well done – irresistibly tempting. The project was fun to conceive, the months of waiting…
If strolling along litter-strewn European beaches you ever console yourself with the thought of the far north – the last stronghold of wilderness, where beaches do not as yet look like rubbish dumps – you’re in for a bit of a disappointment. The Arctic is drowning in litter. Examples of…
The idea to clean a stretch of Svalbard’s shoreline emerged one gloomy September afternoon in 2015, when – bored with excessive comfort of the Polish Polar Station Hornsund – we crossed the fiord to spend a few days in a rotten trapper’s cabin in Palffyodden and do some maintenance work…
We are proud to announce that we have received 330,000 NOK from Svalbard Environmental Protection Fund for the realization of a project entitled Sørkapp Marine Litter Cleanup (No 18/70). Marine litter is human-created waste that has deliberately or accidentally been released in a sea or ocean. It can be blown…